Winner, 2025 New Mexico Book Awards, Multicultural Category Finalist, New Mexico Book Awards, BIPOC Author or Subject Category and First Book Category Working at the intersection of Latina/o/x cultural studies, sociocultural linguistics, and Chicana feminist studies, Lillian Gorman’s Zones of Encuentro takes an in-depth look at the cultural and linguistic interactions between two distinct Latina/o/x communities in the region: Nuevomexicanos (Hispanic people who trace their presence in the region to colonial times and whose families have historically spoken Traditional New Mexican Spanish, or TNMS) and first-generation Mexicano immigrants (who tend to speak Mexican Spanish). Gorman examines the everyday lived language experiences and ethnolinguistic identities of Mexicanos and Nuevomexicanos together, specifically through the case of mixed Mexicano-Nuevomexicano families. Through an interdisciplinary critical reading of ethnographic data, pláticas (informal conversations that gather family and community knowledge), interviews, articles, and historical memoirs, Gorman analyzes language ideologies, identity formations, and language practices by exploring complex spaces of encounter within Mexicano-Nuevomexicano families. Zones of Encuentro complicates homogeneous notions of language and identity and contemplates what a shared cultural and linguistic homeplace looks like for Mexicanos and Nuevomexicanos in northern New Mexico. “Gorman’s most significant intervention in Zones of Encuentro is historicizing and grounding her study with ideas about land. While scholars often theorize language with/as land, Gorman provides a corpus of data to show how New Mexico’s ethnoracial and migrant histories have shaped New Mexicans’ views about language and identity.” ―Dolores Inés Casillas, author of Sounds of Belonging: U.S. Spanish-Language Radio and Public Advocacy “This interdisciplinary and innovative work looks at how communication and community intertwine as Spanish speakers with different backgrounds come together, sometimes clashing and sometimes blending to form new zones of encuentro. The use of testimonios gives voice to the people included and highlights their linguistic and ideological negotiations.” ―Damián Vergara Wilson, coauthor of Language Ideologies and Linguistic Identity in Heritage Language Learning Lillian Gorman is Associate Professor of Latina/o/x cultural studies and sociolinguistics in the Department of Spanish and Portuguese at the University of Arizona, where she directs the Spanish as a Heritage Language Program. She has contributed to several edited collections related to language and identity in US Latina/o/x communities. On November 5, 2005, the front page of the Albuquerque Journal reported “Tensions among Hispanic Groups Erupt in Schools.” The article described a lunchtime cafeteria fight at Capital High School in Santa Fe and explained that “school district officials [were] interpreting the clash as part of long-brewing tensions between ‘Hispanics’—northern New Mexico natives—and ‘Mexicans’ that exist in Santa Fe and other parts of New Mexico.” It further reported on efforts to resolve a feud “brewing between 25 girls whose families were native to Santa Fe and others whose families were from Mexico” at a Santa Fe middle school. The article discussed statewide opinions regarding immigration and reported on focus groups in which “native Hispanics express concern about Spanish-speaking immigrants taxing the resources of the school system with their special needs and requirements, particularly language-barrier issues.” Given the context of conflict depicted in the article, Mari Luci Jaramillo’s “bicultural home” described in the epigraph above stands in contrast to these contentious encounters. Nevertheless, Jaramillo’s experience speaks to a history of Mexican immigrant and New Mexican Hispanic interactions from more than sixty years ago and represents an understudied archive of Mexicano-Nuevomexicano relationships in northern New Mexico. Discussions around internal differences within the New Mexico Hispanic or Latino/a/x population have been largely absent in previous research and in demographic accounts of the state’s population. Both the 2010 and 2020 US Census numbers reflect a majority Hispanic or Latino/a/x population in the state of New Mexico. The Albuquerque Journal ’s August 12, 2021, headline reports that “At Nearly Half the Population, New Mexico Still Most Latino State.” With 47.7 percent of the state’s population claiming Latino/a/x or Hispanic ethnicity, Latinos/as/xs or Hispanics in the state outnumber all other ethnic groups. These demographics have remained relatively constant throughout New Mexico’s existence as a state. Yet, these numbers do not highlight the specificities within the Latino/a/x population of New Mexico. Very little research on New Mexico has acknowledged the heterogeneity within the state’s Latina/o/x communities, and no research has ad