Ramona (1884) is a novel by Helen Hunt Jackson. Inspired by her
activism for the rights of Native Americans, Ramona is a story of
racial discrimination, survival, and history set in California in the
aftermath of the Mexican American War. Immensely popular upon
publication, Ramona earned favorable comparisons to Harriet Beecher
Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin and remains an influential sentimental novel
to this day. Orphaned after the death of her foster mother, Ramona, a
Scottish-Native American girl, is taken in by her reluctant foster aunt
Señora Gonzaga Moreno. Early on, she experiences discrimination due to
her mixed heritage and troubled upbringing, but Gonzaga Moreno
begrudgingly provides for her as though she were her own daughter, in
accordance with her sister's wishes. When a group of Native American
migrant workers arrives from Temecula to perform the annual sheep
shearing, Ramona falls in love with Alessandro, a pious Catholic.
Despite his honesty and capacity for hard work, Alessandro is viewed
with contempt by the Señora. Faced with no alternative, the lovers elope
and make their way toward the San Bernardino Mountains, facing racism
and violence from American settlers along the way. Bound by love,
rejected by the dominant cultures of the newly Americanized California,
Alessandro and Ramona must do what they can to survive. With a
beautifully designed cover and professionally typeset manuscript, this
edition of Helen Hunt Jackson's Ramona is a classic of American
literature reimagined for modern readers.
