Striking, inexplicable stories circulate among the people of Nuevo Leon in northern Mexico. Stories of conversos (converted Jews) who fled the Inquisition in Spain and became fabulously wealthy in Mexico. Stories of women and children buried in walls and under houses. Stories of an entire, secret city hidden under modern-day Monterrey. All these stories have no place or corroboration in the official histories of Nuevo Leon.

In this pioneering ethnography, Marie Theresa Hernandez explores how the folktales of Nuevo Leon encode aspects of Nuevolenese identity that have been...