What is missing in collections of proverbs from medieval times to the present is context. How and when do people actually use them in conversation? And who are the dichosos, those talented performers of dichos who share and teach them? With the help of his mother, Estella Chávez Usner, Don Usner commemorates them with camera and pen. These deeply drawn family and community memoirs show that genealogy in New Mexico is more a performance than a dusty archive; it is a living exercise in verbal art. Usner's book includes sayings that are centuries old as well as those that are recently composed and locally adapted. Accessible and poetic, this repository of dichos and refranes as used in New Mexico brims with authenticity.--Enrique R. Lamadrid, author of Hermanos Comanchitos: Indo-Hispano Rituals of Captivity and Devotion