Showing titles in Latin American Studies

All They Will Call You is the harrowing account of "the worst airplane disaster in California's history", which claimed the lives of 32 passengers, including 28 Mexican citizens - farmworkers who were being deported by the US government. Outraged that media reports omitted only the names of the Mexican passengers, American folk icon Woody Guthrie penned a poem that went on to become one of the most important protest songs of the 20th century.

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.

En Comunidad brings bilingual Latinx students’ perspectives to the center of our classrooms. Its culturally and linguistically sustaining lessons begin with a study of language practices in students’ lives and texts, helping both children and teachers think about their ideas on language. These lessons then lay out a path for students’ and families’ storytelling, a critical analysis of historical narratives impacting current realities, ways to develop a social justice stance, and the use of poetry in sustaining the community.

With contributions from a wide array of scholars and activists, including leading Chicana feminists from the period, this groundbreaking anthology is the first collection of scholarly essays and testimonios that focuses on Chicana organizing, activism, and leadership in the movement years. The essays in Chicana Movidas: New Narratives of Activisim and Feminism in the Movement Era demonstrate how Chicanas enacted a new kind of politica at the intersection of race, class, gender, and sexuality, and developed innovative concepts, tactics, and methodologies that in turn generated new theories, art forms, organizational spaces, and strategies of alliance.

Born on the eve of World War II into a family of Mexican immigrants in El Paso, Antonio C. Márquez remains a child of the border, his life partaking of multiple cultures, countries, and classes. Here he recounts his life story, from childhood memories of movies and baseball and friendship with his Chinese Mexican American neighbor, Manuel Wong, to the turbulent events of his manhood.

In Mestizos Come Home! author Robert Con Davis-Undiano documents the great awakening of Mexican American and Latino culture since the 1960s that has challenged this omission in collective memory. He maps a new awareness of the United States as intrinsically connected to the broader context of the Americas. At once native and new to the American Southwest, Mexican Americans have “come home” in a profound sense: they have reasserted their right to claim that land and U.S. culture as their own.

Esmeralda Santiago reminisces about her childhood in Puerto Rico and her early years in Brooklyn as the oldest of seven (soon to be 11) children. Her upbringing is turbulent on account of her parents’ relentless fighting, which only ever seems to stop when they have another baby. When her youngest brother has an accident, her mother decides to move to New York with her children to seek medical treatment. Arriving in the United States, 13-year-old Santiago experiences uprooting and a loss of identity while she tries to adapt to a culture and language that are foreign to her.

The Turkish Lover, the third installment of Puerto Rican writer Esmeralda Santiago’s memoirs, is the story of her love affair with Ulvi Dogan, a Turkish man 17 years older than her. Initially he provides an escape from her family home but soon winds up being even more demanding than her mother. The story begins in Brooklyn, passes through Miami, and finishes in Massachusetts, where Santiago graduated magna cum laude from Harvard.

Earth Angel with a Green Card is the true story of the author’s mother who spent her life in service to others, especially her children. During her modest early life in rural Mexico, she bore 11 children, whom she raised with very few resources. She also acted as a nurse for her medical practitioner husband. When the author emigrated to the USA at the age of 9½, it broke her heart, but through her faith, hope, and dreams, she joined him and other members of the family several years later. Her work-ethic, love, and faith inspired her children and many others.

Hunger of Memory is the story of Mexican-American Richard Rodriguez, who begins his schooling in Sacramento, California, knowing just 50 words of English, and concludes his university studies in the stately quiet of the reading room of the British Museum. Here is the poignant journey of a "minority student" who pays the cost of his social assimilation and academic success with a painful alienation - from his past, his parents, his culture - and so describes the high price of "making it" in middle-class America.

For the last decade, Margaret Regan has reported on the escalating chaos along the Arizona-Mexico border, ground zero for immigration since 2000. Undocumented migrants cross into Arizona in overwhelming numbers, a state whose anti-immigrant laws are the most stringent in the nation. And Arizona has the highest number of migrant deaths. Fourteen-year-old Josseline, a young girl from El Salvador who was left to die alone on the migrant trail, was just one of thousands to perish in its deserts and mountains.

Laredo is a city at the crossroads of North American history. Founded by the Spanish in 1755, it has stood at the intersection of regional commerce since its earliest days. Now, John A. Adams, Jr. provides the first-ever panoramic business and economic history of Laredo. He traces the evolution of the region from its early days as a ranching center into the mid-20th century when Laredo had become what it remains today: a booming port of trade and a principle center of commerce and financial services on the southern border of the United States.

Ernesto Nieto has been the chief architect and driving force behind the National Hispanic Institute, the internationally recognized producer of next-generation Latino leaders. In this must-listen for those invested in Latino community leadership, Nieto outlines the personal transformation necessary in crafting and pursuing visions for the future.

Jorge Ramos, periodista galardonado con premios Emmy, reconocido presentador del Noticiero Univisión y considerado "la voz de los sin voz" de la comunidad latina, fue expulsado de una rueda de prensa del candidato presidencial Donald Trump en Iowa en el año 2015 tras cuestionar sus planes sobre inmigración.

Jorge Ramos, an Emmy award-winning journalist, Univision's longtime anchorman and widely considered the "voice of the voiceless" within the Latino community, was forcefully removed from an Iowa press conference in 2015 by then-candidate Donald Trump after trying to ask about his plans on immigration. In this personal manifesto, Ramos sets out to examine what it means to be a Latino immigrant, or just an immigrant, in present-day America. With current research and statistics, a journalist nose for a story, and his own personal experience, Ramos shows us the changing face of America.

On a bright Phoenix morning, Elena Santiago opened her door to find her house surrounded by a platoon of federal immigration agents. Her children screamed as the officers handcuffed her and drove her away. Within hours, she was deported to the rough border town of Nogales, Sonora, with nothing but the clothes on her back. Her two-year-old daughter and 15-year-old son, both American citizens, were taken by the state of Arizona and consigned to foster care. Their mother's only offense: living undocumented in the United States.

On the Border of a Dream is an eye-opening and uplifting memoir that tells the true story of a boy from rural Mexico who, at a young age, sets his mind to becoming a pioneering surgeon in the USA. The memoir follows Edgar Hernandez, first with his tight-knit family as an adolescent in Mexico and then as he journeys to the USA to pursue his dream.

At 15, Victor Rios found himself a human target - flat on his ass amid a hail of shotgun fire, desperate for money and a place on the street. Faced with the choice of escalating a drug turf war or eking out a living elsewhere, he turned to a teacher, who mentored him and helped him find a job at an auto shop. That job would alter the course of his whole life - putting him on the road to college and eventually a PhD.

Border Odyssey takes us on a drive toward understanding the US/Mexico divide: all 1,969 miles, from Boca Chica to Tijuana. Along the journey, five centuries of cultural history (indigenous, French, Spanish, Mexican, African American, colonist, and US), wars, and legislation unfold. And through observation, conversation, and meditation, Border Odyssey scopes the stories of the people and towns on both sides.

Right to DREAM makes a compelling argument for the DREAM Act and comprehensive immigration reform. William A. Schwab explores the key issues surrounding this legislation: What are the issues that divide? What do the proponents and opponents of the DREAM Act argue? Is there a middle ground? Is compromise possible?