Lydia Quixano Perez lives in the Mexican city of Acapulco. She runs a bookstore. She has a son, Luca, the love of her life, and a wonderful husband who is a journalist. And while there are cracks beginning to show in Acapulco because of the drug cartels, her life is, by and large, fairly comfortable. Even though she knows they'll never sell, Lydia stocks some of her all-time favorite books in her store. And then one day a man enters the shop to browse and comes up to the register with four books he would like to buy--two of them her favorites. Javier is erudite. He is charming. And, unbeknownst to Lydia, he is the jefe of the newest drug cartel that has gruesomely taken over the city. When Lydia's husband's tell-all profile of Javier is published, none of their lives will ever be the same. Forced to flee, Lydia and eight-year-old Luca soon find themselves miles and worlds away from their comfortable middle-class existence. Instantly transformed into migrants, Lydia and Luca ride la bestia--trains that make their way north toward the United States, which is the only place Javier's reach doesn't extend. As they join the countless people trying to reach el norte, Lydia soon sees that everyone is running from something. But what exactly are they running to?
In the middle of a snowstorm in Brooklyn, 60-year-old human rights scholar Richard Bowmaster hits the car of Evelyn Ortega, a young, undocumented immigrant from Guatemala. What at first seems just a small inconvenience takes a far more serious turn when Evelyn turns up at the professor's house seeking help. At a loss, the professor asks his tenant Lucia Maraz, a 62-year-old lecturer from Chile, for her advice. These three very different people are brought together in a story that moves from present-day Brooklyn to Guatemala in the recent past to 1970s Chile and Brazil, sparking the beginning of a long overdue love story between Richard and Lucia.
After his parents are killed in a horrific roadside execution, Alvaro flees his home in Colombia and finds work as a line cook at the seedy hotel. Together with his sister, Carmen, he begins to make a new life in the desert, earning a promotion to management along with an irresistible offer to stay at the hotel rent-free. But as beloved photographs go missing, cockroaches seep from the walls, and grotesque strangers wander the corridors, the promise of the Alicia decays into nightmare. Alvaro discovers that the hotel is a small appendage of an enormous creature that feeds on guests and their secrets, one that will eventually bring him face-to-face with the memories he most wants to outrun. Alvaro, Carmen, and their friends decide to cooperate with the creature rather than fight it. But in their efforts to appease it, do they sacrifice too much of themselves?
In Valeria Luiselli’s fiercely imaginative follow-up to the American Book Award-winning Tell Me How It Ends, an artist couple set out with their two children on a road trip from New York to Arizona in the heat of summer. As the family travels west, the bonds between them begin to fray: a fracture is growing between the parents, one the children can almost feel beneath their feet. Through ephemera such as songs, maps and a Polaroid camera, the children try to make sense of both their family’s crisis and the larger one engulfing the news: the stories of thousands of kids trying to cross the southwestern border into the United States but getting detained—or lost in the desert along the way.
It's Holy Week in the small town of Las Penas, New Mexico, and thirty-three-year-old unemployed Amadeo Padilla has been given the part of Jesus in the Good Friday procession. He is preparing feverishly for this role when his fifteen-year-old daughter Angel shows up pregnant on his doorstep and disrupts his plans for personal redemption. With weeks to go until her due date, tough, ebullient Angel has fled her mother's house, setting her life on a startling new path. Vivid, tender, funny, and beautifully rendered, The Five Wounds spans the baby's first year as five generations of the Padilla family converge: Amadeo's mother, Yolanda, reeling from a recent discovery; Angel's mother, Marissa, whom Angel isn't speaking to; and disapproving Tíve, Yolanda's uncle and keeper of the family's history.
Talia is being held at a correctional facility for adolescent girls in the forested mountains of Colombia after committing an impulsive act of violence that may or may not have been warranted. She urgently needs to get out and get back home to Bogotá, where her father and a plane ticket to the United States are waiting for her. If she misses her flight, she might also miss her chance to finally be reunited with her family in the north.
Earthy, magical, and utterly charming, this tale of family life in turn-of-the-century Mexico blends poignant romance, bittersweet wit, and delicious recipes. This classic love story takes place on the De la Garza ranch, as the tyrannical owner, Mama Elena, chops onions at the kitchen table in her final days of pregnancy. While still in her mother's womb, her daughter to be weeps so violently she causes an early labor, and little Tita slips out amid the spices and fixings for noodle soup. This early encounter with food soon becomes a way of life, and Tita grows up to be a master chef, using cooking to express herself and sharing recipes with readers along the way.
In 1977 Uruguay, a military government crushed political dissent with ruthless force. In this environment, where the everyday rights of people are under attack, homosexuality is a dangerous transgression to be punished. And yet Romina, Flaca, Anita "La Venus," Paz, and Malena—five cantoras, women who "sing"—somehow, miraculously, find one another. Together, they discover an isolated, nearly uninhabited cape, Cabo Polonio, which they claim as their secret sanctuary. Over the next thirty-five years, their lives move back and forth between Cabo Polonio and Montevideo, the city they call home, as they return, sometimes together, sometimes in pairs, with lovers in tow, or alone. And throughout, again and again, the women will be tested—by their families, lovers, society, and one another—as they fight to live authentic lives.
Haunted all her life by feelings of terror and emptiness, forty-nine-year-old Urania Cabral returns to her native Dominican Republic - and finds herself reliving the events of l961, when the capital was still called Trujillo City and one old man terrorized a nation of three million. Rafael Trujillo, the depraved ailing dictator whom Dominicans call the Goat, controls his inner circle with a combination of violence and blackmail. In Trujillo's gaudy palace, treachery and cowardice have become a way of life. But Trujillo's grasp is slipping. There is a conspiracy against him, and a Machiavellian revolution already underway that will have bloody consequences of its own.
The first-ever collection of short stories by Jaime Cortez, Gordo is set in a migrant workers camp near Watsonville, California in the 1970s. A young, probably gay, boy named Gordo puts on a wrestler’s mask and throws fists with a boy in the neighborhood, fighting his own tears as he tries to grow into the idea of manhood so imposed on him by his father. As he comes of age, Gordo learns about sex, watches his father’s drunken fights, and discovers even his own documented Mexican-American parents are wary of illegal migrants. Fat Cookie, high schooler and resident artist, uses tiny library pencils to draw huge murals of graffiti flowers along the camp’s blank walls, the words “CHICANO POWER” boldly lettered across, until she runs away from home one day with her mother’s boyfriend, Manny, and steals her mother’s Panasonic radio for a final dance competition among the camp kids before she disappears. And then there are Los Tigres, the perfect pair of twins so dark they look like indios, Pepito and Manuel, who show up at Gyrich Farms every season without fail. Los Tigres, champion drinkers, end up assaulting each other in a drunken brawl, until one of them is rushed to the emergency room still slumped in an upholstered chair tied to the back of a pick-up truck.
Ways of Going Home switches between author and character, past and present, reflecting with melancholy and rage on the history of a nation and on a generation born too late—the generation which, as the author-narrator puts it, learned to read and write while their parents became accomplices or victims. It is the most personal novel to date from Zambra, the most important Chilean author since Roberto Bolaño.
Presents a collection of stories that explores the heartbreak and radiance of love as it is shaped by passion, betrayal, and the echoes of intimacy.
From the beloved and award-winning author Junot Díaz, a spellbinding saga of a family's journey through the New World. A coming-of-age story of unparalleled power, Drown introduced the world to Junot Díaz's exhilarating talents. It also introduced an unforgettable narrator-- Yunior, the haunted, brilliant young man who tracks his family's precarious journey from the barrios of Santo Domingo to the tenements of industrial New Jersey, and their epic passage from hope to loss to something like love. Here is the soulful, unsparing book that made Díaz a literary sensation.
The García sisters--Carla, Sandra, Yolanda, and Sofía--and their family must flee their home in the Dominican Republic after their father's role in an attempt to overthrow brutal dictator Rafael Trujillo is discovered. They arrive in New York City in 1960 to a life far removed from their existence in the Caribbean. In the wondrous but not always welcoming U.S.A., their parents try to hold on to their old ways as the girls try find new lives: by straightening their hair and wearing American fashions, and by forgetting their Spanish. For them, it is at once liberating and excruciating to be caught between the old world and the new. Here they tell their stories about being at home--and not at home--in America.
It's 1949. It's the era of the mambo, and two young Cuban musicians make their way up from Havana to the grand stage of New York. The Castillo brothers, workers by day, become by night stars of the dance halls, where their orchestra plays the lush, sensuous, pulsing music that earns them the title of the Mambo Kings. This is their moment of youth--a golden time that thirty years later will be remembered with nostalgia and deep afection. In The Mambo Kings Play Songs of Love,Oscar Hijuelos has created a rich and enthralling novel about passion and loss, memory and desire.
Cristina García’s acclaimed book is the haunting, bittersweet story of a family experiencing a country’s revolution and the revelations that follow. The lives of Celia del Pino and her husband, daughters, and grandchildren mirror the magical realism of Cuba itself, a landscape of beauty and poverty, idealism and corruption. Dreaming in Cuban is “a work that possesses both the intimacy of a Chekov story and the hallucinatory magic of a novel by Gabriel García Márquez” (The New York Times).
A young reporter's life in the 1950s. Paul Kemp breaks into the profession on a newspaper in Puerto Rico and through his eyes are portrayed colorful characters in the days when newspapers flourished.
Born in the United States, raised in Mexico, Harrison Shepherd lacks a sense of home in either. Life is whatever he learns from housekeepers who put him to work in the kitchen; from errands he runs in the streets; and, one fateful day, by mixing plaster for famed Mexican muralist Diego Rivera. He discovers a passion for Aztec history and the exotic, imperious artist Frida Kahlo, who will become his lifelong friend. When he goes to work for Lev Trotsky, an exiled political leader fighting for his life, Shepherd inadvertently casts his lot with art and revolution, newspaper headlines and howling gossip, and a risk of terrible violence. Meanwhile, to the north, the United States will soon be caught up in the internationalist goodwill of World War II. There, in the land of his birth, Shepherd believes he might remake himself in America’s hopeful image and claim a voice of his own. Through darkening years, political winds continue to toss him between north and south in a plot that turns many times on the unspeakable breach—the lacuna—between truth and public presumption.
An American sportswriter, an elusive German novelist, and a teenage student interact in an urban community on the U.S.-Mexico border where hundreds of young factory workers have disappeared.
Lovers on All Saints' Day is an emotional book that haunts, moves, and seduces. Juan Gabriel Vasquez, the brilliant novelist, now brings his keen eye and rich prose to the themes of love and memory in these seven powerful stories.
Witnessing the injustices against Native Americans by European settlers from childhood, Diego de la Vega, the son of an aristocratic Spanish landowner and a Shoshone mother, returns to California from school in Spain to reclaim the hacienda on which he was raised to seek justice for the weak and helpless.
From one of Latin America's finest writers comes a mesmerizing novel about the legendary Eva Peron. Bigger than fiction, Eva Peron was the poor-trash girl who reinvented herself as a beauty, snared Argentina's dictator, reigned as uncrowned queen of the masses, and was struck down by cancer. When her desperate but foxy husband brings Europe's leading embalmer to Eva's deathbed to make her immortal, the fantastical comedy begins.
Working at the local processing plant, Marcos is in the business of slaughtering humans-- though no one calls them that anymore. First an infectious virus made all animal meat poisonous to humans. Then governments initiated the "Transition." Now, eating "special meat" is legal. Then one day he is given a live specimen of the finest quality. Though aware that any form of personal contact is forbidden on pain of death, little by little Marcos starts to treat her like a human being. And soon, he becomes tortured by what has been lost-- and what might still be saved.
Since his wife died, Hugo Contreras's debt from her medical bills has become insurmountable. His world in Miami has shrunk. He shuffles between his efficiency apartment, La Carreta (his favorite place for a cafecito), and a botanica in a strip mall where he works as the resident babaláwo. One day, Hugo's nemesis calls. Alexi Ramirez is a debt collector who has been hounding Hugo for years, and Hugo assumes this call is just more of the same. Except this time Alexi is calling because he needs spiritual help. His house is haunted. Alexi proposes a deal: If Hugo can successfully cleanse his home before Noche Buena, Alexi will forgive Hugo's debt. Hugo reluctantly accepts, but there's one issue: Despite being a babaláwo, he doesn't believe in spirits. Hugo plans to do what he's done with dozens of clients before: use sleight of hand and amateur psychology to convince Alexi the spirits have departed. But when the job turns out to be more than Hugo bargained for, Hugo's old tricks don't work.
Max and Jay have always depended on each other for their survival. Growing up with an abusive father, the two brothers have learned that the only way to protect themselves and their mother is to keep their heads down. And create art. But when they hear a girl in trouble in the woods after school, instinct takes over and they intervene, interrupting a fight and beating up their high school's star soccer player. When the authorities arrive and statements are taken, Max and Jay realize they may have misread the situation. Did they? With their college dreams in jeopardy, this one act of violence shakes their idea of who they thought they were -- as brothers, as sons, as men. Max and Jay will have to reach back to their Bribri (Indigenous Costa Rican) roots to find their way forward -- and face the truth of what really happened in those woods.
La azarosa historia de una esclava en el Santo Domingo del siglo XVIII que logrará librarse de los estigmas que la sociedad le ha impuesto para conseguir la libertad.
The story of a mulatta woman, a slave and concubine, determined to take control of her own destiny in a society where that would seem impossible.
Nacida en España, y proveniente de una familia pobre, Inés Suárez sobrevive a diario trabajando como costurera. Es el siglo dieciséis, y la conquista de América está apenas comenzando. Cuando un día el esposo de Inés desaparece rumbo al Nuevo Mundo, ella aprovecha para partir en busca de él y escapar de la vida claustrofóbica que lleva en su tierra natal. Tras el accidentado viaje que la lleva hasta Perú, Inés se entera de que su esposo ha muerto en una batalla. Sin embargo, muy pronto da inicio a una apasionada relación amorosa con el hombre que cambiará su vida por completo: Pedro de Validivia, el valiente héroe de guerra y mariscal de Francisco Pizarro.
En estas páginas están registrados los pasos que han dejado huella en la historia de México. Los pasos inciertos de quienes lo poblaron y los pasos también inciertos de quienes atraviesan la crisis del último decenio. Entre éstos y aquéllos, el lector sigue paso a paso los que se dieron en la era virreinal, el periodo formativo, el tramo moderno, la revolución y los que condujeron a la "estabilidad política y al avance económico". Esta obra fue orquestada por Daniel Cosío Villegas y ejecutada, además de por él mismo, por Ignacio Bernal, Eduardo Blanquel, Luis González y Alejandra Moreno Toscano. A este quinteto se agrega ahora otro intérprete: Lorenzo Meyer.
Este libro ha querido poner de relieve ese cruce de caminos, interrogar ese lugar pleno de diversidades. Como resultado de un proceso consciente, se ofrecen diez ensayos escritos por autores provenientes de las instituciones universitarias más destacadas de la región que abordan, en primera instancia, la historiografía del diseño —en un sentido amplio— en México, Venezuela, Colombia, Chile, Brasil y Argentina.
Los trabajos reunidos en esta antología, en una apuesta por Centroamérica, en sus propuestas investigativas colaborativas y de defensa participativa de las mujeres que viven violencia, son el testimonio de los caminos críticos y reflexivos de una intelectual-política cuyas búsquedas como antropóloga y activista feminista han tenido entre sus objetivos producir conocimientos, explicar y cambiar la realidad. Los principales ejes de su quehacer y su pensamiento han sido las revoluciones latinoamericanas, la recuperación de los saberes indígenas y de las lenguas mayas, la defensa de la propiedad colectiva, los alegatos a favor del derecho a la tierra para las mujeres y al territorio, la exposición de las causas estructurales de la violencia de género y, en general, la reivindicación del derecho, la libertad, la justicia y el sentido humano.
Todo empieza con Jake Epping, un profesor de inglés que se gana un sueldo extra con clases nocturnas para adultos. Un día pide a sus estudiantes que escriban sobre un acontecimiento que les haya cambiado la vida, y una de esas redacciones le impacta profundamente: la historia de una noche de hace cincuenta años cuando el padre de su alumno Harry Dunning volvió a casa para matar a su familia. Poco después su amigo Al, propietario de un restaurante en su barrio, le descubre un increíble secreto: en el almacén del restaurante hay una puerta que conduce al pasado. Y Al pide a Jake que le ayude con una misión que le obsesiona: impedir el asesinato del Presidente John F. Kennedy. Y así comienza la nueva vida de Jake en un mundo muy diferente. En él, Jake se enamorará mientras sigue el rastro de Lee Harvey Oswald hacia ese crucial momento histórico. Un viaje al pasado nunca ha sido tan creíble, ni tan terrorífico.
Este libro es una excelente contribution al conocimiento del marxismo latinoamericano, como conjunto de reflexiones teoricas compro-metidas con las clases subalternas y las luchas populares. Los autores discutidos por Fabián Cabaluz y Tomas Torres son muy distintos, por su origen nacional, sus enfoques temáticos, sus orientaciones politicas: René Zavaleta Mercado, Alvaro García Linera, Anfbal Quijano y Enrique Dussel. Con todo, como lo demues- tran estos ensayos, son parte de un marxismo latinoamericano heterodoxo, herético, anti dogmático, que intenta crear conceptos y herramientas intelectuales nuevas para entender América Latina - en oposición a un otro tipo de marxismo, que solo busca aplicar los modelos teoricos y politicos formulados por el Comintern, o por la URSS estalinista.
Nicaragua es un símbolo. Y no cualquier clase de símbolo: es un símbolo revolucionario. Si Cuba demostró en 1959 que una revolución en Nuestra América era posible, Nicaragua lo ratificó veinte años más tarde. Por eso, la crisis que atraviesa Nicaragua desde 2018 obliga a la izquierda a posicionarse. Cuando proyectamos este libro no faltó quien cuestionara el proyecto, considerando vergonzoso proponer un análisis en lugar de ofrecer apoyo en las trincheras donde, a diario, morían jóvenes nicaragüenses. ¿Cabía pensar en un libro frente a este panorama? La respuesta es afirmativa. Este proyecto editorial -impulsado por el Grupo de Trabajo el Istmo Centroamericano- es un compromiso y un reto. El compromiso de pensar las realidades políticas, sociales, económicas y culturales de Centroamérica de manera colectiva, en perspectiva regional y con una mirada interdisciplinaria. El reto de revisar críticamente el proceso abierto por la Revolución, sus despliegues y desvíos, sus aciertos y controversias, el papel de Daniel Ortega y la responsabilidad de su gobierno en los acontecimientos recientes.
Las contribuciones reunidas en este volumen buscan dar un paso en el esfuerzo por exami-nar las condiciones y problemas que han rodeado y rodean la producción, circulación y usos del libro en un país poco conocedor de su historia libresca y editorial. Los textos reconstruyen diversos momentos en el desarrollo de una cultura impresa local, que se vio delineada por políticas estatales, movilidades transnacionales y no pocos agentes y producciones que activaron cambios de relevancia dentro del espacio cultural nacional.El libro plantea un recorrido que parte desde el siglo XVI, antes de la llegada de la imprenta al territorio neogranadino, y se extiende hasta los albores del siglo XXI para examinar las nuevas condiciones del mundo del libro. Entre ambas orillas, se analiza el dinamismo tomado por el mundo impreso y sus mediado-res durante el siglo XIX, así como lo ocurrido en el siglo XX, cuando se produjo el momento de mayor modernización editorial y expansión de los grupos lectores colombianos.
Desde diversas perspectivas criticas y anclado igualmente en diversos aparatos teoricos, este libro reune las contribuciones de ocho destacados criticos: Ignacio M. Sanchez Prado, Ramon Alvarado Ruiz, Gaelle Le Calvez House, Julio Enriquez-Ornelas, Tomas Regalado-Lopez, Hector Jaimes, Rebecca Janzen y Cesar Antonio Sotelo en torno a la obra de Pedro Angel Palou. Asimismo, con textos agudos, sugerentes y definidos por la cercania con el escritor, participan tambien cuatro importantes escritores mexicanos: Monica Lavin, Eloy Urroz, Jorge Volpi y Vicente Alfonso. Por otro lado, el mismo Pedro Angel Palou comienza esta edicion donde nos proporciona un repaso sobre su itinerario intelectual. En suma, se trata de un gran aporte critico sobre la obra de uno de los escritores mexicanos contemporaneos imprescindibles.
Los escritos aquí presentes pueden agruparse desde varias entradas, las cuales no son sino un ordenamiento relativamente arbitrario pero indican, de manera general, el rango de problemas que abordamos. Por un lado trabajamos con temas y problemas de investigación ligados especialmente a la crítica teórico-política del colonialismo. Por otro, se da una discusión de la mano de los feminismos contemporáneos. En otro momento, y en conexión, desde perspectivas críticas y en el marco del Pensamiento Latinoamericano aparecen cuestiones vinculadas a cómo, qué, quiénes y desde dónde preguntamos, en qué contextos y espacialidades, cómo nos vinculamos con ciertos materiales y de qué manera los intervenimos, qué dominios generamos con su manipulación, cómo trabajamos con ellos en relación con eso que llamamos, desde la crítica cultural, práctica-teórica.
Mas que una mirada literaria sobre la obra de Pablo Neruda, este libro del critico e investigador Jaime Concha analiza la produccion del Premio Nobel en funcion de sus relaciones con el proceso historico de la sociedad chilena. En esta nueva vision, que continua y que supera sus estudios anteriores, el autor intenta un analisis historico-social de la obra nerudiana, enmarcandola entre los anos del nacimiento del poeta y del estallido de la guerra civil espanola (1904-1936). Lo arduo de este proposito no solo reside en las dificultades inherentes al genero lirico, sino tambien en las derivadas del hecho que el metodo marxista de investigacion sobre literatura aplicado en este libro singular es todavia una empresa que esta en vias de constitucion, sin desconocer los valiosos aportes ya realizados. Como el autor indica en su nuevo prologo, el libro respondia a un periodo historico muy determinado, casi un lapso bien preciso, situado en torno al Chile de 1970. Hoy aprovecha para hacer algunas revisiones acerca de uno que otro planteamiento.
Este texto propone análisis novedosos de los cuentos de Borges y reevalúa y critica algunos análisis existentes, elaborados por diferentes comentaristas. El tipo de análisis propuesto se haría extensivo a otros cuentos de Borges y a otros autores. Es un texto que se esfuerza por tomar distancia de las interpretaciones existentes que hay sobre la obra de Borges y de proponer nuevas lecturas siguiendo un cierto rigor interpretativo.
Horizontes culturales de la historia del arte. Aportes para una acción compartida en Colombia da cuenta de reflexiones que van desde las invisibilidades, entendidas como silencios u omisiones en la historia del arte, pasando por las conexiones complejas entre estética e historia del arte, hasta las vicisitudes de su práctica en el museo o lugares alternativos. También examina la memoria del arte como nuevo modo de representación, relectura y construcción de subjetividad. Esta obra aborda temas y aproximaciones pertinentes, necesarios y posibilitadores de respuestas para tomar acciones concretas en el currículo y en los enfoques de estos programas dentro de un ineludible panorama en transformación.
Quiara Alegria Hudes was the sharp-eyed girl on the stairs while her family danced in her grandmother's tight South Philly kitchen, "frizzy hair cut short, bangs teased into stiff clouds, sweat glistening in the summer fog, pamper-butt babies weaving between legs." Quiara was awed by her aunts and uncles and cousins, but haunted by the secrets of the family and the unspoken stories of the barrio -- even as she tried to find her own voice in the sea of language around her, written and spoken, English and Spanish, bodies and books, Western art and sacred altars. Her family became her private pantheon, a gathering of powerful orishas with tragic wounds and she vowed to tell their stories--but first she'd have to get off the stairs and join the dance; she'd have to find her language. This is an inspired exploration of home, family, memory, and belonging, narrated by the obsessed girl who fought to become an artist so she could capture the world she loved in all its wild and delicate beauty.
Javier Zamora's adventure is a three-thousand-mile journey from his small town in El Salvador, through Guatemala and Mexico, and across the U.S. border. He will leave behind his beloved aunt and grandparents to reunite with a mother who left four years ago and a father he barely remembers. Traveling alone amid a group of strangers and a "coyote" hired to lead them to safety, Javier expects his trip to last two short weeks. At nine years old, all Javier can imagine is rushing into his parents' arms, snuggling in bed between them, and living under the same roof again. He cannot foresee the perilous boat trips, relentless desert treks, pointed guns, arrests and deceptions that await him; nor can he know that those two weeks will expand into two life-altering months alongside fellow migrants who will come to encircle him like an unexpected family.A memoir as gripping as it is moving, Solito provides an immediate and intimate account not only of a treacherous and near-impossible journey, but also of the miraculous kindness and love delivered at the most unexpected moments. Solito is Javier Zamora's story, but it's also the story of millions of others who had no choice but to leave home.
From the internationally acclaimed author of the bestselling novels In the Time of the Butterflies and How the García Girls Lost Their Accents comes a rich and revealing work of nonfiction capturing the life and mind of an artist as she knits together the dual themes of coming to America and becoming a writer.
In this empowering cross-country travelogue, journalist and activist Paola Ramos embarks on a journey to find the communities of people defining the controversial term Latinx. She introduces us to the indigenous Oaxacans who rebuilt the main street in a post-industrial town in upstate New York, the “Las Poderosas” who fight for reproductive rights in Texas, the musicians in Milwaukee whose beats reassure others of their belonging, as well as drag queens, environmental activists, farmworkers, and the migrants detained at our border.
Interviews with a Guatemalan national leader discuss her country's political situation and the resulting violence, which has claimed the lives of her brother, mother, and father.
Within queer, transgender, and Latinx and Chicanx cultural politics, brown transgender narratives are frequently silenced and erased. Brown trans subjects are treated as deceptive, unnatural, nonexistent, or impossible, their bodies, lives, and material circumstances represented through tropes and used as metaphors. Restoring personhood and agency to these subjects, Francisco J. Galarte advances “brown trans figuration” as a theoretical framework to describe how transness and brownness coexist within the larger queer, trans, and Latinx historical experiences. Brown Trans Figurations presents a collection of representations that reveal the repression of brown trans narratives and make that repression visible and palpable.
75 Poems by the Author of How the García Girls Lost Their Accents and In the Time of the Butterflies. The works of this award-winning poet and novelist are rich with the language and influences of two cultures: those of the Dominican Republic of her childhood and the America of her youth and adulthood. They have shaped her writing just as they have shaped her life. In these seventy-five autobiographical poems, Alvarez's clear voice sings out in every line. Here, in the middle of her life, she looks back as a way of understanding and celebrating the woman she has become.
The acclaimed memoir of queer Cuban author Reinaldo Arenas chronicling his tumultuous yet luminary life, from his impoverished upbringing in Cuba to his imprisonment at the hands of a Communist regime.
Jaquira Díaz writes an unflinching account of growing up as a queer biracial girl searching for home as her family splits apart and her mother struggles with mental illness and addiction. From her own struggles with depression and drug abuse to her experiences of violence to Puerto Rico's history of colonialism, every page vibrates with music and lyricism.
The biography of the 1982 Nobel Laureate in Literature tells the story of Márquez, a young man who rose from obscure provincial journalist to progenitor of a new literature.
When Isabel Allende's daughter, Paula, became gravely ill and fell into a coma, the author began to write the story of her family for her unconscious child. In the telling, bizarre ancestors appear before our eyes; we hear both delightful and bitter childhood memories, amazing anecdotes of youthful years, the most intimate secrets passed along in whispers. With Paula, Allende has written a powerful autobiography whose straightforward acceptance of the magical and spiritual worlds will remind readers of her first book, The House of the Spirits.
Carolyn Forché is twenty-seven when the mysterious stranger appears on her doorstep. The relative of a friend, he is a charming polymath with a mind as seemingly disordered as it is brilliant. She's heard rumors from her friend about who he might be: a lone wolf, a communist, a CIA operative, a sharpshooter, a revolutionary, a small coffee farmer, but according to her, no one seemed to know for certain. He has driven from El Salvador to invite Forché to visit and learn about his country. Captivated for reasons she doesn't fully understand, she accepts and becomes enmeshed in something beyond her comprehension.
The incredible true story of a real-life hero at the centre of an international crisis and the Delta Force team who helped him to freedom. Arrested by Manuel Noriega for running an underground radio station in Panama, Muse was incarcerated in the infamous Modelo Prison and became the first and only American citizen ever rescued by the Delta Force.
A collection of mini-biographies follows the achievements of U.S. Navy Admiral David Farragut, baseball player Roberto Clemente, singer Gloria Estefan, schoolteacher Jaime Escalente, and six other notable Hispanic Americans.
Blending literary analysis and memoir, Something More Splendid Than Two is at once an excavation of intergenerational wounds, a dance number, a poem, and a fraught love letter from son to father that disrupts the dominant narratives surrounding the life and myth of Joaquín Murrieta. In the Mexican American imaginary, the legend of Joaquín Murrieta has been recast to explain the wounding of Mexican American men after the 1848 border formation. In these versions, Joaquín is a vigilante hero and the patriarchal father of the Chicanx movement.
In 1994, David Hernandez, a small-time drug-dealer in Spanish Harlem, got out of the drug business and turned his life over to God. After he joined Victory Chapel-a vibrant Bronx-based Pentecostal church-he saw his life change in many ways: today he is a member of the NYPD, married, the father of three, and still an active member of his church. David Hernandez is just one of the many individuals whose stories inform Soul Mates, which draws on both national surveys and in-depth interviews to paint a detailed portrait of the largely positive influence exercised by churches on relationships and marriage among African Americans and Latinos-and whites as well.
Overlooking the significance of America's Hispanic past, the United States is typically perceived as an offshoot of Britain, with its history unfolding east to west, beginning with the first settlers in Jamestown. In an absorbing narrative, Felipe Fern?ndez-Armesto begins with the explorers and conquistadors who planted Spain's first colonies in Puerto Rico, Florida and the Southwest in the sixteenth century. Missionaries and rancheros carry Spain's expansive impulse into the late eighteenth century, settling in California, mapping the American interior to the Rockies and charting the Pacific coast. The nineteenth-century triumph of Anglo-America in the West is followed by the twentieth-century Hispanic resurgence, spreading from the West to cities including Chicago, Miami and Boston. Today's plural America is the product of its past.
At the center of the current immigration debate are migrants from Central America fleeing poverty, corruption, and violence in search of refuge in the United States. In Central America’s Forgotten History, Aviva Chomsky answers the urgent question “How did we get here?” Centering the centuries-long intertwined histories of US expansion and Indigenous and Central American struggles against inequality and oppression, Chomsky highlights the pernicious cycle of colonial and neocolonial development policies that promote cultures of violence and forgetting without any accountability or restorative reparations. Focusing on the valiant struggles for social and economic justice in Guatemala, Nicaragua, El Salvador, and Honduras, Chomsky restores these vivid and gripping events to popular consciousness. Tracing the roots of displacement and migration in Central America to the Spanish conquest and bringing us to the present day, she concludes that the more immediate roots of migration from El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras lie in the wars and in the US interventions of the 1980s and the peace accords of the 1990s that set the stage for neoliberalism in Central America.
Tracing five centuries of exploitation in Latin America, a classic in the field, now in its twenty fifth year Since its U.S. debut a quarter-century ago, this brilliant text has set a new standard for historical scholarship of Latin America. It is also an outstanding political economy, a social and cultural narrative of the highest quality, and perhaps the finest description of primitive capital accumulation since Marx. Rather than chronology, geography, or political successions, Eduardo Galeano has organized the various facets of Latin American history according to the patterns of five centuries of exploitation.
This amazingly brief history of Latin America will delight any reader. Fully informed by the latest scholarship, this cleverly written survey spans six centuries & covers twenty countries. John Charles Chasteen presents a compelling narrative of the Latin American experience, animated by stories about men & women from all walks of life, & enriched by insightful analysis. The famous & not so famous characters of Latin America are here: Cortes, Malinche, Moctezuma, Sister Juana Ines de la Cruz, Bolivar, Father Manuel Hidalgo, Juan & Evita Peron, and, of course, Che Guevara. This is a story of despair & hope, the processes of conquest & colonization, race mixing & class construction, revolution & republic formation, & the elusive quests for sustained economic growth & political & social equality. This beautifully written, concise history will be especially valuable for business & recreational travelers on their way to Latin America.
In November 1519, Hernando Cortes walked along a causeway leading to the capital of the Aztec kingdom and came face to face with Moctezuma. That story - and the story of what happened afterwards - has been told many times, but always following the narrative offered by the Spaniards. After all,we have been taught, it was the Europeans who held the pens. But the Native Americans were intrigued by the Roman alphabet and, unbeknownst to the newcomers, they used it to write detailed histories in their own language of Nahuatl. Until recently, these sources remained obscure, only partiallytranslated, and rarely consulted by scholars.For the first time, in Fifth Sun, the history of the Aztecs is offered in all its complexity based solely on the texts written by the indigenous people themselves. Camilla Townsend presents an accessible and humanized depiction of these native Mexicans, rather than seeing them as the exotic, bloodyfigures of European stereotypes. The conquest, in this work, is neither an apocalyptic moment, nor an origin story launching Mexicans into existence.
The Latino presence in the Washington, DC, metropolitan area has diverse roots and a rich history. The earlier residents were relatively small in number, but the Latino population increased dramatically in the late 20th century. Today, this unique Latino community is the 12th largest in the nation. While people of Salvadoran origin are the most numerous, this area is also home to those who hail from Mexico, Puerto Rico, Guatemala, Cuba, the Dominican Republic, Bolivia, Argentina, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, Honduras, Nicaragua, Paraguay, Peru, Spain, Uruguay, and many other nations and cultures. This book highlights the early days of the Hispanic Festival, the Central American peace movement, the struggle for civil and immigrants' rights, and notable residents. With a shared immigrant experience and broad cultural bonds, these and many other Latino residents have transformed the Washington, DC, area.
Details the unsuccessful Puerto Rican insurrection of 1950 through the life of Pedro Albizu Campos, the president of the Nationalist Party of Puerto Rico.
In 1961, at the height of the Cold War, the United States severed diplomatic relations with Cuba, where a momentous revolution had taken power three years earlier. For more than half a century, the stand-off continued--through the tenure of ten American presidents and the fifty-year rule of Fidel Castro. His death in 2016, and the retirement of his brother and successor Raúl Castro in 2021, have spurred questions about the country's future. Meanwhile, politics in Washington--Barack Obama's opening to the island, Donald Trump's reversal of that policy, and the election of Joe Biden--have made the relationship between the two nations a subject of debate once more.
From Roman times to the present day, Spain has occupied a significant role in the evolution of our Western world. This book highlights the notable trends, intellectual and social, of each particular era in its history. The imposition of Roman rule created the notion of Hispania as a single entity. Chapters on the Visigoth monarchy, Moorish Spain, the establishment of an empire, the eighteenth-century Enlightenment, all chart the political and economic development of Spain, but also emphasise the extraordinary and diverse artistic and literary achievements of the Spanish people within this one country at these different times. Moving on to the nineteenth century, we read of the rise of liberalism, and of its fall, which ushered in a period of disarray leading to the Civil War and authoritarian rule. Today Spain is a fully integrated and enthusiastic member of the European community. The contributors to this work are all specialists in their field, and provide an authoritative overview of two thousand years of Spanish history for the student and general reader.
From historian James Reston comes an account of the pivotal events of 1492, a year when towering political ambitions, horrific religious excesses, and a drive toward adventure and conquest changed the world forever. This book chronicles one of the most savage epochs in history, the years of the Spanish Inquisition. In an effort to consolidate their power on the Iberian Peninsula, King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella turned to the priest Torquemada, a member of the Dominican order. Torquemada urged an Inquisition that would strengthen the sovereigns' authority throughout Spain, particularly in the coming campaign against the Moors of Granada.
When Spanish Peru, 1532-1560 was published in 1968, it was acclaimed as an innovative study of the early Spanish presence in Peru. It has since become a classic of the literature in Spanish American social history, important in helping to introduce career-pattern history to the field and notable for its broad yet intimate picture of the functioning of an entire society. In this second edition, James Lockhart provides a new conclusion and preface, updated terminology, and additional footnotes.
On April 11, 2002, nearly a million Venezuelans marched on the presidential palace to demand the resignation of President Hugo Chavez. Led by Pedro Carmona and Carlos Ortega, the opposition represented a cross-section of society furious with Chavez's economic policies, specifically his mishandling of the Venezuelan oil industry. But as the day progressed the march turned violent, sparking a military revolt that led to the temporary ousting of Chavez. Over the ensuing, turbulent seventy-two hours, Venezuelans would confront the deep divisions within their society and ultimately decide the best course for their country --and its oil--in the new century. An exemplary piece of narrative journalism,The Silence and the Scorpion provides rich insight into the complexities of modern Venezuela.
Since the first edition of this book appeared in 1982, El Salvador has experienced the most radical social change in its history. Ten years of civil war, in which a tenacious and creative revolutionary movement battled a larger, better-equipped, U.S.-supported army to a standstill, have ended with twenty months of negotiations and a peace accord that promises to change the course of Salvadorean society and politics.This book traces the history of El Salvador, focusing on the two actors--the oligarchy and the armed forces--that shaped the Salvadorean economy and political system. Concentrating on the period since 1960, the author sheds new light on the U.S. role in the increasing militarization of the country and the origins of the oligarchy-army rupture in 1979.
Waging war has historically been an almost exclusively male endeavor. Yet, over the past several decades women have joined insurgent armies in significant and surprising numbers. Why do women become guerrilla insurgents? What experiences do they have in guerrilla armies? And what happens to these women when the fighting ends?Women in War answers these questions while providing a rare look at guerrilla life from the viewpoint of rank-and-file participants. From 230 in-depth interviews with men and women guerrillas, guerrilla supporters, and non-participants in rural El Salvador, Jocelyn Viterna investigates why some women were able to channel their wartime actions into post-war gains, and how those patterns differ from the benefits that accrued to men. By accounting for these variations, Viterna helps resolve debates about the effects of war on women, and by extension, develops our nascent understanding of the effects of women combatants on warfare, political violence, and gender systems.
Central America is an extraordinarily beautiful part of the world, with sweeping panoramic vistas of tropical vegetation, towering mountains, and striking ethnic and racial diversity. This tropical paradise has a history as diverse as its people and cultures. Starting with the Maya in ancient Mesoamerica, the History of Central America continues with European contact and the subsequent subjugation of the people of Central America. Spaniards established and ruled their Central American empire during the Colonial period. This led to the National period, independence movements, and the subsequent development of independent, sovereign Central American nations. By the mid-20th century, the economies, governments, and populations of the seven republics had evolved so distinctly that each has its own unique set of challenges to deal with today.
Concise yet thorough, this engaging book provides an overview of the unique history of an increasingly important Central American nation. The History of Costa Rica provides a thorough, straightforward narrative of a Central American country that has become increasingly more visible since the end of the 20th century. Written for students and the general reader, this book covers the nation from its pre-Colombian origins to the present day. This chronologically organized volume documents the area's earliest inhabitants, then moves on through the colonial period, the process of nation-state formation in the 19th century, the volatile period of liberal reform, and the era of civil war and its aftermath. More recent times are also explored, including the role of Costa Rica in the Cold War, the peace process of the 1980s, and the development of the strong tourism industry that flourishes today. Among the prominent themes running through the book are the unique historical development of the country, the importance of its democratic tradition, and Costa Rica's role in a global context.
Understanding Central America explains how domestic, global, political and economic forces have shaped rebellion and regime change in Costa Rica, Nicaragua, El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras throughout their histories, during the often-turbulent 1970s and since. The text provides students a comprehensive coverage of Central America, political science, and international relations. The authors explain the origins and development of the region’s political conflicts, their resolution and ongoing political change. This Sixth Edition provides the most up-to-date information on the recent political changes in each of the five countries presented.
The building of the Panama Canal was one of the greatest engineering feats in human history. A tale of exploration, conquest, money, politics, and medicine, PANAMA FEVER charts the challenges that marked the long, labyrinthine road to the building of the canal. Drawing on a wealth of new materials and sources, Matthew Parker brings to life the men (including Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, and Ulysses S Grant) who recognized the impact a canal would have on global politics and economics, and adds new depth to the familiar story of Teddy Roosevelt's remarkable triumph in making the waterway a reality. Parker's grim chronicle of the actual construction lends another meaning to Panama fever. As thousands of workers succumbed to dysentery, yellow fever, and malaria, scientists raced to stop the deadly epidemics so that work could continue. The treatments they developed changed the course of medical history. The opening of the Panama Canal in 1914 spelled the end of the Victorian Age and the beginning of the American Century.
A groundbreaking history of the Panama Canal offers a revelatory workers-eye view of the momentous undertaking and shows how it launched the American century The Panama Canal has long been celebrated as a triumph of American engineering and technology. In The Canal Builders, Julie Greene reveals that this emphasis obscures a far more remarkable element of the canal's construction - the tens of thousands of workingmen and -women who traveled from around the world to build it. Drawing on research from around the globe, Greene explores the human dimensions of the Panama Canal story, revealing how it transformed perceptions of American empire at the dawn of the twentieth century.
An epic, heartbreaking, and deeply reported history of the disastrous humanitarian crisis at the southern border that tells the story of the migrants forced to risk everything and the policy makers determining their fate.
Structured around the forty questions Luiselli translates and asks undocumented Latin-American children facing deportation, Tell Me How It Ends (an expansion of her 2016 Freeman's essay of the same name) humanizes these young migrants and highlights the contradiction of the idea of America as a fiction for immigrants with the reality of racism and fear--both here and back home.
Heartbreaking immersion into the lives of people enduring extreme violence in Central America. El Salvador and Honduras have had the highest homicide rates in the world over the past ten years. Oscar Martinez, author of The Beast, which was named one of the best books of the year by the Economist and the Financial Times, shares a beautiful and immersive account of life in one of the most violent places on earth. Martinez travels to Nicaraguan fishing towns, southern Mexican brothels where Central American women are trafficked, isolated Guatemalan jungle villages and crime-ridden Salvadoran slums. With his precise and empathetic reporting, he reveals the underbelly of some of the most dangerous places in the world, going undercover to drink with narcos, accompanying police patrols, riding in trafficking boats and hiding out with a gang informer. The result is an unforgettable portrait of a region of fear, helping to explain why migrants have been fleeing the area by the millions.
Ethnographic study of indigenous opposition to processes of economic globalization, arguing that neoliberal economic reforms both provoked a crisis of governance and created the conditions for a disruptive indigenous movement in Ecuador.
Dignity and Defiance is a powerful, eyewitness account of Bolivia's decade-long rebellion against globalization imposed from abroad. Based on extensive interviews, this story comes alive with first-person accounts of a massive Enron/Shell oil spill from an elderly woman whose livelihood it threatens, of the young people who stood down a former dictator to take back control of their water, and of Bolivia's dramatic and successful challenge to the policies of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund. Featuring a substantial introduction, a conclusion, and introductions to each of the chapters, this well-crafted mix of storytelling and analysis is a rich portrait of people calling for global integration to be different than it has been: more fair and more just.
Bananas, the most frequently consumed fresh fruit in the United States, have been linked to Miss Chiquita and Carmen Miranda, "banana republics," and Banana Republic clothing stores—everything from exotic kitsch, to Third World dictatorships, to middle-class fashion. But how did the rise in banana consumption in the United States affect the banana-growing regions of Central America? In this lively, interdisciplinary study, John Soluri integrates agroecology, anthropology, political economy, and history to trace the symbiotic growth of the export banana industry in Honduras and the consumer mass market in the United States.
The gun control debate is revived with every mass shooting. But far more people die from gun deaths on the street corners of inner city America and across the border as Mexico's powerful cartels battle to control the drug trade. Guns and drugs aren't often connected in our heated discussions of gun control-but they should be. In Ioan Grillo's groundbreaking new work of investigative journalism, he shows us this connection by following the market for guns in the Americas and how it has made the continent the most murderous on earth.
An Indigenous environmental scientist breaks down why western conservationism isn't working--and offers Indigenous models informed by case studies, personal stories, and family histories that center the voices of Latin American women and land protectors.
Driven by the pressures of poverty and civil strife at home, large numbers of Central Americans came to the Los Angeles area during the 1980's. Neither purely economic migrants, though they were in search of stable work, nor official refugees, although they carried the scars of war and persecution, Guatemalans and Salvadorans were even denied the aid given to refugees such as Cubans and Vietnamese. In addition, these immigrants sought refuge in a city undergoing massive economic and demographic shifts of its own. The result was -- and is -- a complex interaction that will help to reconceptualize the migration experience.Based on twenty years of work with the Los Angeles Central American community and filled with facts, figures, and personal narratives, Seeking Community in a Global City presents this saga from many perspectives. The authors examine the forces in Central America that sent thousands of people streaming across international borders.
Ecotourism Development in Costa Rica: The Search for Oro Verde, by Andrew P. Miller, examines the use of ecotourism as a development strategy in Costa Rica and its applicability to other Central American states. Ecotourism provides an important environmental check on industry, giving the environment a voice by making its preservation an economic necessity due to the number of people who derive their income from it. The move away from agriculture to ecotourism is a natural fit because many of those who are engaged in agriculture have extensive knowledge of plants and animals that can be utilized by the ecotourism industry.
Young minority men are often portrayed in popular media as victims of poverty and discrimination. A Dream Denied delves deeper, investigating the social and cultural implications of the "American dream" narrative for young minority men in the juvenile justice systems in Boston and Chicago. This book connects young male offenders' cycles of desistance and recidivism with normative assumptions about success and failure in American society, exposing a tragic disconnect between structural reality and juvenile justice policy. This book challenges us to reconsider how American society relates to its most vulnerable members, how it responds to their personal failures, and how it promises them a better future.
In the mid-nineteenth century, Cuba's infamous "coolie" trade brought well over 100,000 Chinese indentured laborers to its shores. Though subjected to abominable conditions, they were followed during subsequent decades by smaller numbers of merchants, craftsmen, and free migrants searching for better lives far from home. In a comprehensive, vibrant history that draws deeply on Chinese- and Spanish-language sources in both China and Cuba, Kathleen Lopez explores the transition of the Chinese from indentured to free migrants, the formation of transnational communities, and the eventual incorporation of the Chinese into the Cuban citizenry during the first half of the twentieth century.
Streetwalking: LGBTQ Lives and Protest in the Dominican Republic is an exploration of the ways that lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans and queer persons exercise power in a Catholic Hispanic heteropatriarchal nation-state, namely the Dominican Republic. Lara presents the specific strategies employed by LGBTQ community leaders in the Dominican Republic in their struggle for subjectivity, recognition, and rights. Drawing on ethnographic encounters, film and video, and interviews, LGBTQ community leaders teach readers about streetwalking, confrontación, flipping the script, cuentos, and the use of strategic universalisms in the exercise of power and agency. Rooted in Maria Lugones's theorization of streetwalker strategies and Audre Lorde's theorization of silence and action, this text re-imagines the exercise and locus of power in examples provided by the living, thriving LGBTQ community of the Dominican Republic.
The current daily experiences of undocumented students as they navigate the processes of entering and then thriving in Jesuit colleges are explored alongside an investigation of the knowledge and attitudes among staff and faculty about undocumented students in their midst, and the institutional response to their presence. Cutting across the fields of U.S. immigration policy, theory and history, religion, law, and education, Undocumented and in College delineates the historical and present-day contexts of immigration, including the role of religious institutions. This unique volume, based on an extensive two-year study (2010-12) of undocumented students at Jesuit colleges in the United States and with contributions from various scholars working within these institutions, incorporates survey research and in-depth interviews to present the perspectives of students, staff, and the institutions.
The life histories and testimonies of nine Salvadoran women from different generations shape this intimate portrayal of contemporary El Salvador. The authors interviewed a grandmother, mother, and granddaughter from three Salvadoran families: La Familia Nuñez, members of the upper class; La Familia Rivas, from El Salvador's growing middle class; and La Familia García, from the campo, the Salvadoran peasantry. The voices we hear convey a deep sense of the world of Salvadoran women and how life is lived in that Central American country today.
There Are No Dead Here is the harrowing story of three ordinary Colombians who risked everything to reveal the collusion between the new mafia and much of the country's military and political establishment: Jesus Maria Valle, a human rights activist who was murdered for exposing a dark secret; Ivan Velasquez, a quiet prosecutor who took up Valle's cause and became an unlikely hero; and Ricardo Calderon, a dogged journalist who is still being targeted for his revelations. Their groundbreaking investigations landed a third of the country's Congress in prison and fed new demands for justice and peace that Colombia's leaders could not ignore.
Anti-immigrant sentiment reached a fever pitch after 9/11, but its origins go back much further. Public rhetoric aimed at exposing a so-called invasion of Latino immigrants has been gaining ground for more than three decades — and fueling increasingly restrictive federal immigration policy. Accompanied by a flagging U.S. economy — record-level joblessness, bankruptcy, and income inequality — as well as waning consumer confidence, these conditions signaled one of the most hostile environments for immigrants in recent memory. In Brokered Boundaries, Douglas Massey and Magaly Sánchez untangle the complex political, social, and economic conditions underlying the rise of xenophobia in U.S. society. Brokered Boundaries analyzes how first- and second-generation immigrants from Central and South America and the Caribbean navigate these categories and their associated meanings as they make their way through U.S. society.
The true operatic tragedy of Maximilian and Carlota, the European aristocrats who stumbled into power in Mexico--and faced bloody consequences. In the 1860s, Napoleon III, intent on curbing the rise of American imperialism, persuaded a young Austrian archduke and a Belgian princess to leave Europe and become the emperor and empress of Mexico. They and their entourage arrived in a Mexico ruled by terror, where revolutionary fervor was barely suppressed by French troops. When the United States, now clear of its own Civil War, aided the rebels in pushing back Maximilian's imperial soldiers, the French army withdrew, abandoning the young couple. The regime fell apart. Maximilian was executed by a firing squad and Carlota, secluded in a Belgian castle, descended into madness. Assiduously researched and vividly told, The Last Emperor of Mexico is a dramatic story of European hubris, imperialist aspirations clashing with revolutionary fervor, and the Old World breaking from the New.
When Carmela wakes up on her birthday, her wish has already come true--she's finally old enough to join her big brother as he does the family errands. Together, they travel through their neighborhood, past the crowded bus stop, the fenced-off repair shop, and the panadería, until they arrive at the Laundromat, where Carmela finds a lone dandelion growing in the pavement. But before she can blow its white fluff away, her brother tells her she has to make a wish. If only she can think of just the right wish to make . . . With lyrical, stirring text and stunning, evocative artwork, Matt de la Peña and Christian Robinson have crafted a moving ode to family, to dreamers, and to finding hope in the most unexpected places.
A spunky young girl from Colombia loves playing with her canine best friend and resists boring school activities, especially learning English, until her family tells her that a special trip is planned to an English-speaking place.
If you ask her, Alma Sofia Esperanza José Pura Candela has way too many names: six! How did such a small person wind up with such a large name? Alma turns to Daddy for an answer and learns of Sofia, the grandmother who loved books and flowers; Esperanza, the great-grandmother who longed to travel; José, the grandfather who was an artist; and other namesakes, too. As she hears the story of her name, Alma starts to think it might be a perfect fit after all -- and realizes that she will one day have her own story to tell.
This beautiful Pura Belpré Award-winning picture book is a bilingual ride through the joyous history of Children's Day/El día de los niños. Children's Day/Book Day; El día de los niños/El día de los libros is observed each year on April 30. Founder Pat Mora's jubilant celebration of this day features imaginative text and lively illustrations by award-winning illustrator Rafael López that will turn this bilingual fiesta into a hit for story time! Toon! Toon! The book includes a letter from the author and suggestions for celebrating Children's Day /El día de los niños, making the book perfect for gifting, family celebrations, and classroom sharing.
As a child, Amalia always thought she would grow up to be a teacher, until she saw a performance of dancers in her town square. She was fascinated by the way the dancers twirled and swayed, and she knew that someday she would be a dancer, too. She began to study many different types of dance, including ballet and modern, under some of the best teachers in the world.
Girls cannot be drummers. Long ago on an island filled with music, no one questioned that rule--until the drum dream girl. In her city of drumbeats, she dreamed of pounding tall congas and tapping small bongós. She had to keep quiet. She had to practice in secret. But when at last her dream-bright music was heard, everyone sang and danced and decided that both girls and boys should be free to drum and dream.
There are no shortcuts to surviving your first day at a new school--you can't fix it with duct tape like you would your Chuck Taylors. On Day One, twelve-year-old Malú (María Luisa, if you want to annoy her) inadvertently upsets Posada Middle School's queen bee, violates the school's dress code with her punk rock look, and disappoints her college-professor mom in the process. Her dad, who now lives a thousand miles away, says things will get better as long as she remembers the first rule of punk: be yourself. The real Malú loves rock music, skateboarding, zines, and Soyrizo (hold the cilantro, please). And when she assembles a group of like-minded misfits at school and starts a band, Malú finally begins to feel at home. She'll do anything to preserve this, which includes standing up to an anti-punk school administration to fight for her right to express herself!
Every kid in Lola's school was from somewhere else. Hers was a school of faraway places. So when Lola's teacher asks the students to draw a picture of where their families immigrated from, all the kids are excited. Except Lola. She can't remember The Island--she left when she was just a baby. But with the help of her family and friends, and their memories--joyous, fantastical, heartbreaking, and frightening--Lola's imagination takes her on an extraordinary journey back to The Island. As she draws closer to the heart of her family's story, Lola comes to understand the truth of her abuela's words: "Just because you don't remember a place doesn't mean it's not in you."
Merci Suarez knew that sixth grade would be different, but she had no idea just how different. For starters, Merci has never been like the other kids at her private school in Florida, because she and her older brother, Roli, are scholarship students. They don't have a big house or a fancy boat, and they have to do extra community service to make up for their free tuition. So when bossy Edna Santos sets her sights on the new boy who happens to be Merci's school-assigned Sunshine Buddy, Merci becomes the target of Edna's jealousy. Things aren't going well at home, either: Merci's grandfather and most trusted ally, Lolo, has been acting strangely lately -- forgetting important things, falling from his bike, and getting angry over nothing. No one in her family will tell Merci what's going on, so she's left to her own worries, while also feeling all on her own at school.
Twelve-year-old Jaime makes the treacherous and life-changing journey from his home in Guatemala to live with his older brother in the United States in this "powerful and timely" (Booklist, starred review) middle grade novel. Jaime is sitting on his bed drawing when he hears a scream. Instantly, he knows: Miguel, his cousin and best friend, is dead. Everyone in Jaime's small town in Guatemala knows someone who has been killed by the Alphas, a powerful gang that's known for violence and drug trafficking. Anyone who refuses to work for them is hurt or killed--like Miguel. With Miguel gone, Jaime fears that he is next. There's only one choice: accompanied by his cousin Ángela, Jaime must flee his home to live with his older brother in New Mexico.
A combined history of the Puerto Rican parrot and the island of Puerto Rico, highlighting current efforts to save the Puerto Rican parrot by protecting and managing this endangered species.
The love between brothers is key to Matt Tavares's tale of Dominican pitcher Pedro Martínez, from his days of throwing rocks at mangoes to his years as a major-league star. Before Pedro Martínez pitched the Red Sox to a World Series championship, before he was named to the All-Star team eight times, before he won the Cy Young three times, he was a kid from a place called Manoguayabo in the Dominican Republic. Pedro loved baseball more than anything, and his older brother Ramon was the best pitcher he'd ever seen. He'd dream of the day he and his brother could play together in the major leagues--and here, Matt Tavares tells the story of how that dream came true. In a fitting homage to a modern day baseball star, the acclaimed author-illustrator examines both Pedro Martínez's improbable rise to the top of his game and the power that comes from the deep bond between brothers.
A boy helps his father keep their very old car running as they make a trip to Havana for his newborn cousin's zero-year birthday. Includes author's note about cars in Cuba.
It is the winter of 1929, and cousins Hildamar and Santiago have just moved to enormous, chilly New York from their native Puerto Rico. As Three Kings' Day approaches, Hildamar and Santiago mourn the loss of their sunny home and wonder about their future in their adopted city. But when a storyteller and librarian named Pura Belpre arrives in their classroom, the children begin to understand just what a library can mean to a community. In this fitting tribute to a remarkable woman, Lucia Gonzalez and Lulu Delacre have captured the truly astounding effect that Belpre had on the city of New York."
This prequel to Eric Velasquez's biographical picture book Grandma's Records is the story of a Christmas holiday that young Eric spends with his grandmother. After they prepare their traditional Puerto Rican Christmas celebration, Eric and Grandma visit the Metropolitan Museum of Art for a school project, where he sees a painting by Diego Velasquez and realizes for the first time that he could be an artist when he grows up. Grandma witnesses his fascination, and presents Eric with the perfect Christmas gift-a set of paints-to use in his first steps toward becoming an artist. A heart-warming story of self-discovery, Grandma's Gift is a celebration of the special bond between a grandparent and grandchild.
Pedro Martin's grown up in the U.S. hearing stories about his legendary abuelito, but during a family road trip to Mexico, he connects with his grandfather and learns more about his own Mexican identity in this moving and hilarious graphic memoir.
Jovita didn't want to cook and clean like her sisters, and she especially didn't want to wear the skirts her abuela gave her. She wanted to race her brothers and climb the tallest mesquite trees in Rancho Palos Blancos, ride horses, and wear pants! When her father and brothers joined the Cristeros War to fight for the right to practice religion, she wanted to help. She wasn't allowed to fight, but that didn't stop her from observing how her father strategized and familiarizing herself with the terrain. When tragedy struck, she did the only thing that felt right to her--cut her hair, donned a pair of pants, and continued the fight, commanding a battalion who followed her without question.
Dreamers is a celebration of making your home with the things you always carry: your resilience, your dreams, your hopes and history. It's the story of finding your way in a new place, of navigating an unfamiliar world and finding the best parts of it. In dark times, it's a promise that you can make better tomorrows.
An adaptation of the Peruvian folktale in which Fox and Mole try to climb to the moon on a rope woven of grass.
A fictionalized biography of the Nobel Prize-winning Chilean poet Pablo Neruda, who grew up a painfully shy child, ridiculed by his overbearing father, but who became one of the most widely-read poets in the world. Includes author's note about the poet.
Describes the life and times of the Nobel Prize-winning Chilean poet.
Esperanza learns the art of weaving Guatemalan tapestries from her grandmother. Together they make something very special and refuse to show it to anyone until market day.
Ada Ríos grew up in Cateura, a small town in Paraguay built on a landfill. She dreamed of playing the violin, but with little money for anything but the bare essentials, it was never an option...until a music teacher named Favio Chávez arrived. He wanted to give the children of Cateura something special, so he made them instruments out of materials found in the trash. It was a crazy idea, but one that would leave Ada--and her town--forever changed. Now, the Recycled Orchestra plays venues around the world, spreading their message of hope and innovation.
Fourteen-year-old Mateo and other Caribbean islanders face discrimination, segregation, and harsh working conditions when American recruiters lure them to the Panamanian rain forest in 1906 to build the great canal.
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