Hispanic Heritage  

Too frequently, the media and politicians cast Mexican immigrants as a threat to American society. Given America's increasing ethnic diversity and the large size of the Mexican-origin population, an investigation of how Mexican immigrants and their descendants achieve upward mobility and enter the middle class is long overdue. Barrios to Burbs offers a new understanding of the Mexican-American experience. The author investigates the salience of middle-class Mexican Americans' ethnic identification and details how relationships with poorer coethnics and affluent whites evolve as immigrants and their descendants move into traditionally white middle-class occupations.

Anthropologist-historian James Diego Vigil distills an enormous amount of information to provide a perceptive introduction to the Mexican-American experience in the United States. He uses brief, clear outlines of each stage of Mexican-American history, charting the culture change sequences in the Pre-Columbian, Spanish Colonial, Mexican Independence and Nationalism, and Anglo-American and Mexicanization periods. The richly illustrated Third Edition incorporates data from the latest literature; in addition, a new chapter updates discussions of immigration, institutional discrimination, the Mexicanization of the Chicano population, and issues of gender, labor, and education.

"Utilizing census data and other statistical source materials, this book examines the transformations in the demographic, social, and economic structures of Latino-Americans in the United States between 1980 and 2005".

Both Hollywood and corporate America are taking note of the marketing power of the growing Latino population in the United States. And as salsa takes over both the dance floor and the condiment isle, the influence of Latin culture is gaining momentum in American society as a whole. Yet the increasing visibility of Latinos in mainstream culture has not been accompanied by a similar level of economic parity or political enfranchisement. In this important, original, and entertaining book, Arlene Dávila provides a critical examination of the Hispanic marketing industry and of its role in the making and marketing of U.S. Latinos.
Dávila finds that Latinos' increased popularity in the marketplace is simultaneously accompanied by their growing exotification and invisibility.

In Redeemers, acclaimed historian Enrique Krauze presents the major ideas that have formed the modern Latin American political mind during the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries—and looks closely at how these ideas were expressed in the lives of influential revolutionaries, thinkers, poets, and novelists. In this brilliant, deeply researched history, Krauze uses the range of these extraordinary lives to illuminate the struggle that has defined Latin American history.

Despite being 20 million strong, Latinas represent America's most undervalued human resource. This career guide is the only one of its kind to focus specifically on empowering the working women of the Latina community to embrace success and build skills for workplace advancement. The Latina's Guide to Success in the Workplace explores the complexity of the Hispanic/Latino identity and the impact of this culture on professional mobility. The author asserts that there are five obstacles which Latinas confront within their own belief system: the idea that women do not need an education; the assumption that the needs of men come first; a belief that it is sinful to desire money; the opinion that Latinas should not be ambitious; and the mindset that successful women in the United States lose their femininity. Throughout the book, up-to-date research, case studies, and inspirational interviews offer strategies for overcoming the cultural factors that limit Latinas and providing a roadmap for achieving success.

Provides informative biographical profiles of the important and influential persons of Latino heritage who form the international Hispanic community. Covers persons of various nationalities in a wide variety of fields, including art, music and literature to science, politics and business.

This series offers biographies of many influential Hispanic figures.

The long-awaited follow-up book to Always Running, this title is the equally harrowing story of Rodríguez starting over, at age eighteen, after leaving gang life—the only life he knew. It Calls You Back opens with Rodríguez’s final stint in jail as a teenager and follows his struggle to kick heroin, and search for meaningful work. He describes with heartbreaking honesty his challenges as a father and his difficulty leaving addictions completely behind. Even as he breaks with “la vida loca” and begins to discover success as a writer and an activist, Rodríguez finds that his past—the crimes, the drugs, the things he’d seen and done—has a way of calling him back.

With the same passionate immediacy as Eire brought to his memoir of a Cuban boyhood, he writes now about coming to America at age 11. The story takes readers from the journey to American, as one of 14,000 unaccompanied refugee children in 1962’s Operation Pedro Pan, through his time in foster homes, and eventually to joining his uncle in Chicago. Desperate to be American, the teen wants to kill the Cuban in himself, and the personal details are funny, furious, and heartbreaking.

This is the definitive biography of the first Latina appointed to the Supreme Court. The author delves behind the headlines to tell the compelling story of how the daughter of Puerto Rican immigrants from the South Bronx became one of the greatest legal minds in the country. She explores the tenacity that makes Sotomayor a sharp, fearless judge; the sense of compassion that drives her to seek justice for the underprivileged; and her strong community ties, which never let her forget where she came from.

In this extraordinary memoir, award-winning writer Reyna Grande vividly brings to life her tumultuous early years, capturing all the confusion and contradictions of childhood, especially one spent torn between two parents and two countries. Only in books and music and her rich imaginary life does she find solace, a momentary refuge from a world in which every place feels like “El Otro Lado.” The Distance Between Us captures one girl’s passage from childhood to adolescence and beyond. A funny, heartbreaking, lyrical story, it reminds us that the joys and sorrows of childhood are always with us, invisible to the eye but imprinted on the heart, forever calling out to us of those places we first called home.

"There's a revolution underway in South America, but most of the world doesn't know it. In SOUTH OF THE BORDER, Oliver Stone sets out on a road trip across five countries to explore the social and political movements as well as the mainstream media's misperception of South America while interviewing seven of its elected presidents. In casual conversations with Presidents Hugo Chávez (Venezuela), Evo Morales (Bolivia), Lula da Silva (Brazil), Cristina Kirchner (Argentina), as well as her husband and ex-President Nestor Kirchner, Fernando Lugo (Paraguay), Rafael Correa (Ecuador), and Raúl Castro (Cuba), Stone gains unprecedented access and sheds new light upon the exciting transformations in the region."

Latin music USA highlights the great American music created by Latinos, and celebrates the Latin rhythms at the heart of jazz, rock, country, and rhythm and blues. It's a fresh take on American musical history, reaching across five decades to portray the rich mix of sounds created by Latinos and embraced by all.

Cesar Chavez overcame huge obstacles, including extreme poverty and the prejudice that he experienced as a Hispanic American and a migrant farmer, to achieve his goal of helping to organize the first successful union for America's farm workers. As a union activist, he promoted the use of nonviolent strikes, boycotts and protests to help farm workers obtain better pay and working conditions, and forever changed the relationship between farm owners and workers.

In 1952, twenty-three year old medical student Ernesto Guevara de la Serna - Fuser to his friends and later better known as 'Ernesto Che Guevara' - one semester away from graduation, decides to postpone his last semester to accompany his twenty-nine year old biochemist friend Alberto Granado - Mial to his friends - on his four month, 8,000 km long dream motorcycle trip throughout South America starting from their home in Buenos Aires.

Check out this biography as well as some of his best works in both English and Spanish including: One Hundred Years of Solitude, Love in the Time of Cholera, News of a Kidnapping and Strange Pilgrims.

Criticism and critiques of this Argentine author. Also check out fiction & poetry by Borges.

An entertaining, and provocative collection, Lengua Fresca celebrates some of the most original and cutting-edge work to emerge from Latino life in the United States. Featuring an eclectic mix of Latino writing—including fiction, journalism, essays, comics, and even cultural ephemera—this unique anthology showcases literature found in unexpected places. Selections include stories from Salvador Plascencia, Christina Henriquez, and Ana Menendez; graphic pieces from the Hernandez brothers and Lalo Alcaraz (creator of La Cucaracha); and essays by Stephanie Elizondo Griest and Dagoberto Gilb on pop culture topics such as The George Lopez Show and Taco Bell. Compiled by the editors of Growing Up Latino, Lengua Fresca offers an unconventional window on a vibrant, quickly expanding culture.

A poignant love story told from a woman's point of view, takes place in turn-of-the-century Mexico. The heroine, Tita, a master chef, was literally born in the kitchen. Following tradition, her tyrannical mother decrees that Tita as the youngest must not marry but instead take care of her mother in old age. Unable to communicate freely, Tita concocts recipes so magically potent as to convey her emotions to all who eat her creations.

Describes the life and times of the Chilean poet and diplomat. Don't miss his love poems, in Spanish and in English.

Discusses the life of Latina author Sandra Cisneros, including her childhood in Chicago, her path to becoming an accomplished author, and her work in the Latino community.

Cisneros draws on her rich Latino heritage, and draws readers in with precise, spare prose, creating unforgettable characters we want to lift off the page. Although the story evolves around Hispanics, this is a book for all races, and all times.

Internationally acclaimed author Isabel Allende explores the painful reality of her own life after tragic death of her daughter, Paula. Narrated with warmth, humor, candor, and wisdom, this remarkable memoir is as exuberant and full of life as its creator. Allende bares her soul as she shares her thoughts on love, marriage, motherhood, spirituality and religion, infidelity, addiction, and memory.