"As I contend in this article, neoliberal, globalizing policies have significant cultural repercussions. In particular, the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) imbricates the “Recovering the U.S. Hispanic Literary Heritage” project, an academic publishing series initiated coincidentally with the NAFTA negotiations in the early 1990s. The project publishes so-called Hispanic literature that spans the geographic and cultural boundaries of the current relationship between the U.S. and Mexico. As responses to the labor and immigrant conditions promulgated by precursors to NAFTA, the recovered texts offer a potent critique of the current situation that parallels the context of the historic texts. Specifically, María Ruiz de Burton's The Squatter and the Don's republication by the Recovery project overcomes the limitations of neoliberal multiculturalism through its depiction of immigrant labor and model of proper U.S. citizenship. By engaging these issues, the text indicts NAFTA's repercussion for individuals, especially laborers, in the U.S. and Mexico, illustrating the critical potential of the Recovery project."

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