Remedios: The Healing Life of Eva Castellanoz

The Result of a Twenty-Year Friendship between Joanne Mulcahy and Eva Castellanoz, Remedios traces the transformation of a Mexican migrant worker to a charismatic curandera (healer), community activist, and winner of the National Heritage Award from the National Endowment for the Arts. Blending her own observations and Eva's stories, the author presents Eva's early years in Mexico, her young life in the Rio Grande Valley, and her adult years as a wife and mother in Nyssa, Oregon. Mulcahy relates how Eva conducts healing ceremonies, using rituals and herbs to attend to the sick and troubled who seek her help. The author gives us an intimate glimpse into Eva's family life, her community work with women and children, and her complex identity as an indigenous, Catholic curandera.