"This volume delivers a powerful compilation of thoughtful and provocative essays written by a group of first-rate scholars. While each contributor has turned to their own particular specialization in cultural inquiry, collectively they provide their readers with a broad view of the wide range of social developments found across a wide swath of the western hemisphere."-John Michael Vlach, author of Back of the Big House: The Architecture of Plantation Slavery and The Planter's Prospect: Privilege and Slavery in Plantation Paintings"For anyone interested in human culture as something alive-something that moves as we, its makers, move with it-this book, with its vivid, surprising, and far-reaching examples of syncretic forms, will be an inspiration."-Susan Stewart, author of The Poet's Freedom: A Notebook on Making"Creolization as Cultural Creativity teaches us how to think about the many verbal ways that people on the lower rungs dynamically express and remake themselves in challenging cultural circumstances. How do they respond and create something new? In these trying historical times, I find this an immensely helpful, hopeful, and even liberating scholarly book."-Edward Hirsch, author of The Living Fire: New and Selected Poems and How to Read a Poem and Fall in Love with PoetryRobert Baron directs the folk arts program of the New York State Council on the Arts. He is the coeditor, with Nick Spitzer, of Public Folklore. Folklorist Ana C. Cara is professor of Hispanic studies at Oberlin College. Her articles have appeared in Journal of American Folklore, World Literature Today, and Latin American Research Review.Contributions from Roger D. Abrahams, Robert Baron, Kenneth Bilby, Ana C. Cara, J. Michael Dash, Grey Gundaker, Lee Haring, Raquel Romberg, Nick Spitzer, and John F. Swzed