A collection of colour photographs of Batesville and San Antonio, Texas. All of the American subjects are of Mexican descent.Photographs by Finnish photographer Esko Mannikko. Essays by Maaretta Jaukkuri and Gary Michael Dault.This copy is signed directly on the title page in black ink-pen by Esko Mannikko. 50 colour plates.Taken from the inside:- Texas offered Mannikko visual plenitude and colourful mixtures of cultural traditions, as well as an encounter with the survival strategies that the Mexican population have created around themselves. In San Antonio and its surroundings, he met with a multitude of practices aimed at overcoming the tensions and boredom of daily toil and routine, with ingenious ways of creating possibilities for escaping into other worlds where things would look brighter, more colourful and more joyful. The private universes that we all in different ways create around us are a source of endless wonder and admiration in Mannikko's art. The energy used to create these private 'paradises' seems to be inexhaustible, while also telling us that the search for beauty, harmony and inspiration are an integral part of the human condition.Printed on pristine-white, thick stock paper in Finland. Pale blue pictorial hard boards with photographic reproduction on cover and metallic-silver titles embossed on cover and spine.