Latino Books

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“A love letter to our people—full of fury and passion."— José Olivarez, award-winning poet and author of Citizen Illegal"If you could take Rodolfo Gonzales epic poem 'I Am Joaquin' and explain it through compelling, personal narrative in twenty-first century America, You Sound Like A White Girl would be it.”— Joaquin CastroBestselling author Julissa Arce brings readers a powerful polemic against the myth that assimilation leads to happiness and belonging for immigrants in America. Instead, she calls for a celebration of our uniqueness, our origins, our heritage, and the beauty of the differences that make us Americans.“You sound like a white girl.” These were the words spoken to Julissa by a high school crush as she struggled to find her place in America. As a brown immigrant from Mexico, assimilation had been demanded of her since the moment she set foot in San Antonio, Texas, in 1994. She’d spent so much time getting rid of her accent so no one could tell English was her second language that in that moment she felt those words—you sound like a white girl?—were a compliment. As a child, she didn’t yet understand that assimilating to “American” culture really meant imitating “white” America—that sounding like a white girl was a racist idea meant to tame her, change her, and make her small. She ran the race, completing each stage, but never quite fit in, until she stopped running altogether.In this dual polemic and manifesto, Julissa dives into and tears apart the lie that assimilation leads to belonging. She combs through history and her own story to break down this myth, arguing that assimilation is a moving finish line designed to keep Black and brown Americans and immigrants chasing racist American ideals. She talks about the Lie of Success, the Lie of Legality, the Lie of Whiteness, and the Lie of English—each promising that if you obtain these things, you will reach acceptance and won’t be an outsider anymore. Julissa deftly argues that these demands leave her and those like her in a purgatory—neither able to secure the power and belonging within whiteness nor find it in the community and cultures whiteness demands immigrants and people of color leave behind.In You Sound Like a White Girl, Julissa offers a bold new promise: Belonging only comes through celebrating yourself, your history, your culture, and everything that makes you uniquely you. Only in turning away from the white gaze can we truly make America beautiful. An America where difference is celebrated, heritage is shared and embraced, and belonging is for everyone. Through unearthing veiled history and reclaiming her own identity, Julissa shows us how to do this.

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It was never To o's plan to leave El Salvador behind.To o has spent his entire life rising hours before dawn to feed the animals and mind the farm of his father Jose Angel. He wants nothing more than a plot of land and a farm of his own. And he knows exactly how to get it: make his way across the Mexican border to the United States of America, where he'll earn enough money to help his family and himself.It's like Jose Angel says the day To o leaves: "You always have a home to come back to."But the year is 1979. And the Salvadoran Civil War is about to begin.Now To o is working under the table for jewelers and roofers and cohabitating with his fellow immigrants, working every moment he can to secure his plans. He's searching for a woman who might help him start his own family in El Salvador, and abandoning those who won't sacrifice their dreams for his-all the while ignoring his father's warnings of the chaos back home.What happens when a dream disappears? In uncertain circumstances in an unfamiliar country, can you find another life to fight for?Marcos Antonio Hernandez's The Education of a Wetback is a moving story of the haphazard, unexpected search for the American dream.

Books

The novel embraces food as a communal practice with the ability to heal a family through storytelling.

Books

"For generations, women of color have had to push against powerful forces of sexism, racism, and classism in this country, and too often, they have felt that they had to face these challenges alone. Through her writing, her activism, and through founding Latina Rebels, Prisca Dorcas Mojica Rodrâiguez fought to create community to help women fight together. Now her new book For Brown Girls with Sharp Edges and Tender Hearts offers wisdom and a liberating path forward for all fellow Brown girls. Her new book addresses a range of issues: How can Brown girls survive, and thrive, in spaces that were never meant for us? How do we feel pride when we're forced to code-switch? How can we deal with our own imposter syndrome? How do we free ourselves from internalized racism, when it comes to colorism within our communities? And what does it mean to decolonize our worldview? Chapter by chapter, Mojica Rodrâiguez not only defines these terms, she crafts powerful new ways to address these challenges. She defies "universal" white narratives by telling her own stories. She gives readers access to the knowledge that changed her life and powered her activism. Too often Brown girls have had to strive and climb and force themselves into predominantly white spaces that were never built for them. Here Mojica Rodrâiguez crafts a love letter and a manifesto to Brown girls, guiding them toward women who have innovated a sense of pride and sisterhood when the dominant community has failed them. In the end, this timely and urgent book energizes a movement with essential tools to help women speak up and make change. May it spark a fire within you"--

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One extraordinary woman.One hundred years of history.One unforgettable story.Violeta comes into the world on a stormy day in 1920, the first daughter in a family of five boisterous sons. From the start, her life is marked by extraordinary events, for the ripples of the Great War are still being felt, even as the Spanish flu arrives on the shores of her South American homeland almost at the moment of her birth.Through her father's prescience, the family will come through that crisis unscathed, only to face a new one as the Great Depression transforms the genteel city life she has known. Her family loses all and is forced to retreat to a wild and beautiful but remote part of the country. There, she will come of age, and her first suitor will come calling.In a letter to someone she loves above all others, Violeta recounts devastating heartbreak and passionate affairs, times of both poverty and wealth, terrible loss and immense joy, and a life shaped by some of the most important events of history: the fight for women's rights, the rise and fall of tyrants and, ultimately, not one but two pandemics. Through the eyes of a woman whose unforgettable passion, determination, and sense of humour will carry her through a lifetime of upheaval, Isabel Allende once more brings us an epic that is both fiercely inspiring and deeply emotional.