Primarily focusing on a character named Luz Lopez in 1930's Denver, Woman of Light depicts a Denver that is eerily similar to our own. Facing police brutality, class and racial tensions, set against the backdrop of a worldwide recession, young Luz and her family do their best to survive in this hostile world. With flashbacks to the Lost Territory in the late 19th and early 20th century, we see how the Lopez family's way of life has become disrupted with the immigration of Anglos to Colorado. Like Sandra Cisneros before her, Fajardo-Anstine does an absolutely incredible job depicting the universal joys and pains of Chicana womanhood. Despite taking place nearly 100 years ago, the lives of Luz, Lizette, and Maria Josie still ring familiar to audiences today. With just two books under her belt, I feel confident in saying that Fajardo-Anstine is one of my generation's great Chicana authors.Publisher's description:
1890: When Desiderya Lopez, The Sleepy Prophet, finds an abandoned infant on the banks of an arroyo, she recognizes something in his spirit and brings him home. Pidre will go on to become a famous showman in the Anglo West whose main act, Simodecea, is Pidre's fearless, sharpshooting wife, who wrangles bears as part of his show. 1935: Luz "Little Light" Lopez and her brother Diego work the carnival circuit in downtown Denver. Luz, is a tea leaf reader, and Diego is a snake charmer. One day, a pale-faced woman in white fur asks Luz for a reading, calling her by a name that only her brother knows. Later that night at a party downtown, Luz sees Diego dancing with this pale-faced woman, which results in a brawl with the local white supremacist group. Diego leaves town for cover and Luz is left trying to get justice for her brother and family.