Hispanic American Literature

Hispanic American literature incorporates the writing of Chicanos, or Mexican Americans; Puerto Rican Americans; Cuban Americans; and other Americans of Central or South American heritage. Marked in contemporary times by the 1947 publication of Mario Suárez's short stories in the Arizona Quarterly, Hispanic American literature can trace its roots to several hundred years earlier, when the then Spanish-controlled region that is now the western United States was inhabited by Spaniards, Creoles, and mestizos. Hispanic American literature has been written in English, Spanish, and caló (a hybrid that incorporates the vocabulary, grammar, and syntax of English and Spanish).