Gilberto Perez

I regret that there was no acknowledgment of Diane Stevenson in my piece on the Western (LRB, 18 November). Diane is my wife, but her ideas about The Searchers weren’t tossed at me in marital conversation: they were presented in research papers at academic conferences. I had never heard of Quanah Parker, the historical Comanche chief of mixed race who was, as she established, the inspiration for...

Esther Allen (Letters, 10 August) says that José Martí held contradictory views of the US. I said the same thing in my article. But Allen seems to want to resolve the contradictions in a certain way. She suggests that the strong anti-American sentiments expressed in Martí’s last letter, from which I quoted, shouldn’t be taken too seriously because that letter was addressed to a Mexican friend...