Chistes: Hispanic Humor of Northern New Mexico and Southern Colorado [Paperback]

Nasario Garcia (Editor, Translator), John Nichols (Foreword)

Book Description

Publication Date: June 2004

"When I moved to northern New Mexico thirty-three years ago," writes John Nichols, "I immediately fell in with my neighbours and commenced laughing". As folklorist Nasario Garcia explains in his introduction to this collection, falling in with the voices of laughter and comic relief is a timeless, vital aspect of Hispanic culture. !Chistes! brings together for the first time in English and regional Spanish a medley of orally gathered humorous anecdotes from northern New Mexico and southern Colorado. The chistes range in form from practical jokes, pranks, slips-of-the-tongue, hyperbole, solecisms, slapstick, and double entendres. True for most of the villages and towns represented in this collection, Hispanic humour is a function of folks who understand how to deal with difficult times with verve and at time self-deprecation, places with a strong communal identification, where everyone knows everybody's business and tells it with good-natured fun; where nothing is off limits, not even the church; where local politics takes it on the chin and farm animals provide the punch. The original Spanish versions of these tales are particularly flavourful for their colourful vernacular found uniquely in the region covered.

Editorial Reviews

From the Publisher

As folklorist Nasario García explains in his introduction to this collection, falling in with the voices of laughter and comic relief is a timeless, vital aspect of Hispanic culture. !Chistes! brings together for the first time in English and regional Spanish a medley of orally gathered humorous anecdotes from northern New Mexico and southern Colorado. The chistes range in form from practical jokes, pranks, slips-of-the-tongue, hyperbole, solecisms, slapstick, and double entendres.

The original Spanish versions of these tales are particularly flavorful for their colorful vernacular found uniquely in the region covered. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

About the Author

Nasario Garcia has edited and translated numerous collections of folklore, including Mas Antes: Hispanic Folklore of the Rio Puerco Valley (Museum of New Mexico Press) and Platicas: Conversations with Hispano Writers of New Mexico (Texas Tech). A former professor of languages at New Mexico Highlands University, he lives in Santa Fe. John Nichols is the author of The Milagro Beanfield War, among many works of fiction.

Product Details

• Paperback: 176 pages
• Publisher: Museum of New Mexico Pr (June 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0890134316
• ISBN-13: 978-0890134313
• Product Dimensions: 8.4 x 5.5 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 9.9 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,890,667 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3.0 out of 5 stars Local Hispanic folk humor, January 5, 2012

By 

R. M. Peterson (Santa Fe, NM) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Chistes: Hispanic Humor of Northern New Mexico and Southern Colorado (Paperback)

"Chistes" are "brief anecdotes that contain a verbal or conceptual game capable of engendering laughter." They include jokes, practical jokes, and various forms of word play, including solecisms, puns, and double-entredres. Some of the chistes collected in this book have at least a foundation in real-life happenings, and others no doubt are fabricated from whole cloth. All are examples of folk humor as told by and among Hispanos of Northern New Mexico and Southern Colorado.

The book presents the chistes in both English and as told in the local vernacular of Spanish. Nasario García selected them, either as personally told to him or as contained in an earlier book, and he also is responsible for the English translations.

Most of these chistes would bomb on David Letterman. They are not very sophisticated; some are downright awkward. But they all are good-natured. Their Hispano tellers are, by and large, rural folk who have had to scrabble together a modest living in a rather austere high-desert land. They provide a window into, as John Nichols puts it in his fine Foreword, a community "where folks understood how to deal with difficult times with great verve, a strong communal identification, and plenty of wacky (yet usually instructive) humor."

I probably would never have bought CHISTES! on my own, but my youngest son gave it to me for Christmas. I am glad he did. I got a better sense of my Northern New Mexico neighbors who have lived here much, much longer than me. If, however, you are not from the area or do not have a keen interest in oral folklore, I doubt that CHISTES! will do much for you.