UNM's Lamadrid Receives 2004 Chicago Folklore Prize

The book, “Hermanitos Comanchitos: Indo-Hispano Rituals of Captivity and Redemption,” UNM Press, 2003, by Enrique Lamadrid, professor of Spanish and director of Chicano Studies at the University of New Mexico, has been chosen a co-winner of the 2004 Chicago Folklore Prize. UNM Communication and Journalism Professor Miguel Gandert was Lamadrid's collaborating photographer.

The Chicago Folklore Prize is the oldest award of its kind, honoring the best book in folklore throughout the world since 1928. Lamadrid and Gandert share the 2004 Chicago Folklore Prize with Barre Toelken for his book, “The Anguish of Snails.”

These books underscore the tremendous importance of Native American and ethnic studies, and the counterpoint between indigenous and hybrid cultures, for the field of folklore and beyond, according to Philip V. Bohlman, Mary Werkman Professor of the Humanities and of Music, and administrator, Chicago Folklore Prize.

Anonymous judges select the Chicago Folklore Prize. The following is one judge's remarks:

Enrique Lamadrid's “Hermanitos Comanchitos: Indo-Hispano Rituals of Captivity and Redemption” is a wonderfully limned exploration of both Pueblo and Hispanic identities as expressed through the festivals of Los Comanches in the Southwest. Lamadrid and collaborating photographer Miguel Gandert offer a rich balance of elegant prose, great visual images, and both notated and recorded sound as they investigate this topic in historical breadth and ethnographic depth.

Bohlman, Chicago Folklore Prize administrator, said, “Hermanitos Comanchitos is indeed a very special book, both because of the wisdom and personal experience that enhance its scholarly lesson and because of the clarity of its pedagogical lessons. [Hermanitos Comanchitos has] a rich store of songs, texts and photographs, not to mention the superbly conceived CD, that makes the fiestas in your book come alive.”