Suffer Smoke

Suffer Smoke, a bittersweet collection of short stories, is centered on the copper mining town of Morenci Arizona. A company town, Morenci was home to generations of Mexican Americans. In the late sixties, the corporation that owned everything in sight but its employees’ souls saw fit to raze the town so that the open pit mine could be expanded.

Elena Díaz Björkquist, a native daughter of the original Morenci, has written lucid, ardent stories about its Mexican American families and the mining company that gave them jobs and yet oppressed them. She gives voice to the characters beneath the toil, illuminating the complexity of their yearnings and frustrations and pays tribute to the indomitable spirit of a people in their battle for equality and dignity.