Renowned historian Vicki L. Ruiz impresses us once again with her scholarship and legendary contribution in the field of Chicana/Latina/o Studies by uniting forces with Virginia Sánchez-Korrol in delivering a mastodontal set of entries, with the assistance of many other renowned historians and academics. There are almost 600 entries in this encyclopedia, written by 200 contributing authors. It has a fantastic index both under individuals' names and under specific topics: Art, Athletics, Aviation and Aerospace, Business, Education, Film and Theatre, Grassroots Community Activism and Civil Rights, Journalism, Labor Activism, Law, League of United Latin American Citizens, Libraries, Literature, Medicine and Science, Military Service, Music and Dance, Philanthropy, Politics, Public Health and Social Work, Religion, Spanish Borderlands and Colonies, and World War II. What is most impressive about the encyclopedia is its tuned and parallel commentary on class, and working-class issues. This has been excluded from most women-focused encyclopedias. The other issue that is worth underlining is that while Latinas are part of the largest minority group in the U.S., the historical, social, literary, and political contribution of this group of minority people in the U.S. has not been closely documented, especially in previous centuries. The encyclopedia spans from the 16th century to the present.

While the encyclopedia is an essential academic contribution to the Latina field in the Recovery arena (many entries are from Latino individuals who lived at the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th century) as well as an essential reference and education tool, it is missing many authors, literary critics, leaders, and community organizers. Some of the missing people from the pages of this monumental work are Latina authors of the caliber of Marjorie Agosin, Kathleen Alcala, Alma Luz Villanueva, Carmen Tafolla, Carolina Hospital, Alicia Gaspar de Alba, Carla Trujillo, and Norma Elia Cantú. Also missing are community organizers Cruz Gómez who led a re-districting war in central California, unprecedented by others and backed by LULAC in the '80s, and Chicana leader Cecilia Preciado Burciaga who in the '90s challenged institutional academic racism at several universities in California including Stanford and CSUMB. In the Religion section, scholars such as Pilar Aquino and Jeanette Rodriguez were left out. However, the encyclopedia is a pioneering document that opens the fields of recovery and inscription in Latino life and culture, documenting an important number of pioneering leaders and event that have not otherwise appeared in an encyclopedia.

The work includes a Preface, an extensive Introduction, and a section on Latinas in the Southwest, Northeast, Midwest, Southeast and the Pacific Northwest. The body of the encyclopedia is shaped by a list of entries on individuals, organizations -- particularly feminist Latina organizations such as the Hijas de Cuauhtémoc -- important strikes in Latina history and themes such as Feminism, Entrepreneurs, Contemporary Farmworkers, Altars, Aztlán, Aging, as well as Artists and many others, including a discussion of films that marked Latina/Chicana/o History including Giant, Corridos, Salt of the Earth, and Lone Star. At the end of each volume of the encyclopedia is a list of Biographical Entries, a list of Organizations, a list of Selected Readings in Latina History, Notes on Contributors, and an expansive Index.

The work has received excellent reviews from academics. According to Darlena Clark Hine from Northwestern University, "This encyclopedia immeasurably complicates and enriches American history," and renowned Latina academic Lillian Castillo-Speed believes that Latinas in America: A Historical Encyclopedia "will fill a gap in Latino Studies' scholarship and in Women's Studies as well." Maria E. Montoya, Director of Latina/o Studies at the University of Michigan calls it "a ground-breaking piece of collaborative scholarship that will reshape the way scholars think about U.S., Immigration, labor, and Latina/o history." She also believes that it gives "a more complete view of the complex world that Latinas have women together over the last five hundred years." While I agree that it is groundbreaking and essential, I look forward to an enlarged version of the encyclopedia that includes all the aforementioned overlooked Latinas not included in its pages. Might we be just a little bit more careful in our scholarship and production of encyclopedias?