"The Search for Pedro's Story" recreates the life experiences of Pedro Peres, a leather jacket soldier in the Spanish colonial army in eighteenth-century Texas.
Each chapter begins with a signpost artifact related to one of Pedro's roles--soldier, horseman, explorer, guard, spouse, messenger, and cowboy--and ends with a fictional account of an event in Pedro's life from the findings.
The discipline of history usually focuses on heroic deeds and people, but Martinello thinks its methods of detection should also reveal how ordinary people lived. In "The Search for Pedro's Story,"...

Blending careful research and creative storytelling, "The Search for a Chili Queen" explores the lantern-lit world of the young hostesses who staffed nightly chili stands and vied for loyal customers on the plazas of late nineteenth-century San Antonio. As a humanities detective, Marian L. Martinello chronicles her step-by-step investigation into the life and times of the chili queens, making frequent reference to the unique sources that guided her inquiry. The pages of the book are replete with nineteenth-century photographs and paintings, in addition to modern photos of artifacts in museum...

"It happened on the plaza that never slept--my favorite place in the whole of the city," writes Lupe PErez, to begin her memoir.
A mix of historical fact, vintage photos and maps, recipes, music, folklore, and south Texan culture, Lupe's story offers an eyewitness account of life on Military Plaza in San Antonio during the 1880s.
Facing the impending failure of her family's chili stand, Lupe is certain she can improve profits. But her older sister and hostess, Josefa, resists Lupe's arguments--until Tom O'Malley, an itinerant vaudeville actor, arrives. By default, Lupe becomes Chili...