Tia Chucha Press is honored to announce The Place of the White Heron, our first novel after thirty-four years of publishing poetry collections and anthologies. By renowned Chicano writer and scholar Alejandro Morales, the book is a parable for the twenty-first century, an allegory of the violence, racism, and international tensions between the United States and Mexico. Protagonist J. I. Cruz embodies a mythic female character needed in our besieged times. Allusions to pre-Columbian goddesses and other Mexican mythological, religious, artistic, spiritual, and historical figures are part of her psychological and spiritual identity.