This collection of selected conference papers includes experiences of specific minority groups: the native Americans, the Chicanos, and the Puerto Ricans. The papers represent the work of folklorists, historians, musicians, literary critics, and minority and ethnic studies experts. The section on native American oral tradition includes papers on Indian oratory, Algonkian communal values, Indian wisdom stories, and the work of Alex Posey, a Creek Indian. In the section on Latino folklore, the topics covered are the importance of folk literature in the Chicano experience, the creation of myth in Chicano literature, Hispanic wedding customs in New Mexico, the paradoxes of contemporary Puerto Rican poetry, the literature of the Barrio, and the Puerto Rican folk tradition of the child's wake. (Author/MC)