Margarite Fern�ndez Olmos is a professor of Spanish and Latin American literatures at Brooklyn College, City University of New York. She is the author/coeditor of many books, including The Latino Reader: An American Literary Tradition from 1542 to the Present.Lizabeth Paravisini-Gebert is a Professor in the Department of Hispanic Studies on the Randolph Distinguished Professor Chair and Director of the Environmental Studies Program at Vassar College. She is the author of a number of books and is coeditor with Fern�ndez Olmos of Healing Cultures: Art and Religion as Curative Practices in the Caribbean and its Diaspora .