Mostrando títulos en Estudios Latinoamericanos

Born into a large, close-knit family in Nicaragua, Prisca Dorcas Mojica Rodríguez grew up surrounded by strong, kind, funny, sensitive, resilient, judgmental, messy, beautiful women. Whether blood relatives or chosen family, these tías and primas fundamentally shaped her view of the world—and so did the labels that were used to talk about them. The tía loca who is shunned for defying gender roles. The pretty prima put on a pedestal for her European features. The matriarch who is the core of her community but hides all her pain.

The city of Salinas, California, is the birthplace of John Steinbeck and the setting for his epic masterpiece East of Eden, but it is also the home of Nuestra Familia, one of the most violent gangs in the United States. Born in the prisons of California in the late 1960s, Nuestra Familia expanded to control drug trafficking and extortion operations throughout the northern half of the state and left a trail of bodies in its wake.

For five hundred years, Latina/o culture and identity have been shaped by their challenges to the religious, socio-economic, and political status quo, whether in opposition to Spanish colonialism, Latin American dictatorships, US imperialism in Central America, the oppression of farmworkers, or the current exploitation of undocumented immigrants. Christianity has played a significant role in that movement at every stage. Robert Chao Romero, the son of a Mexican father and a Chinese immigrant mother, explores the history and theology of what he terms the "Brown Church."

In May 2001, a group of men attempted to cross the Mexican border into the desert of southern Arizona, through the deadliest region of the continent, the "Devil's Highway." Three years later, Luis Alberto Urrea wrote about what happened to them. The result was a national bestseller, a Pulitzer Prize finalist, a "book of the year" in multiple newspapers, and a work proclaimed as a modern American classic.

In the lead-up to every election cycle, pundits predict that Latino Americans will overwhelmingly vote in favor of the Democratic candidate. And it’s true - Latino voters do tilt Democratic. Hillary Clinton won the Latino vote in a “landslide”, and Barack Obama “crushed” Mitt Romney among Latino voters in his reelection. But those numbers belie a more complicated picture. Here, historian and political commentator Geraldo Cadava illuminates the history of the millions of Hispanic Republicans who, since the 1960s, have had a significant impact on national politics.

Raised in Miami and the daughter of Cuban refugees, Crucet examines the political and personal contours of American identity and the physical places where those contours find themselves smashed: be it a rodeo town in Nebraska, a university campus in upstate New York, or Disney World in Florida. Crucet illuminates how she came to see her exclusion from aspects of the theoretical American Dream, despite her family's attempts to fit in with white American culture - beginning with their ill-fated plan to name her after the winner of the Miss America pageant.

As the largest minority in the country, Latino Americans make up an integral part of American history and continue to make major social, cultural, and political contributions. Latino Americans, vividly and candidly tells how the story of Latino Americans is the story of the United States, revealing the personal struggles and successes of immigrants, poets, soldiers, and others who have made an impact on history.

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.

Just Like Us tells the story of four high school students whose parents entered this country illegally from Mexico. All four of the girls have grown up in the United States, and all four want to live the American dream, but only two have documents. As the girls attempt to make it into college, they discover that only the legal pair see a clear path forward. A coming-of-age story about girlhood and friendship, as well as the resilience required to transcend poverty, Just Like Us is also a book about identity.

Brown Enough, Christopher Rivas's first book, is a literary memoir about what it truly means to be Brown in America. Holding the weight of being a Latino man, Christopher wonders where he falls on the color line, widened through his experience as an ethnically am­biguous actor of color in Holly­wood and the many dangers and pitfalls that come from owning one's Brownness. Told through the lens of his personal stories and in a unique and literal voice, Christopher examines the deep history of his Dominican and Colombian heritage.

Weaving personal narrative with political analysis, Community as Rebellion offers a meditation on creating liberatory spaces for students and faculty of color within academia. Much like other women scholars of color, Lorgia Garcia Peña has struggled against the colonizing, racializing, classist, and unequal structures that perpetuate systemic violence within universities.

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.

"Latino" is the most open-ended and loosely defined of the major race categories in the United States. Our Migrant Souls: A Meditation on Race and the Meanings and Myths of "Latino" assembles the Pulitzer Prize winner Héctor Tobar's personal experiences as the son of Guatemalan immigrants and the stories told to him by his Latinx students to offer a spirited rebuke to racist ideas about Latino people.

The first new edition in 10 years of this important study of Latinos in US history, Harvest of Empire spans five centuries - from the first New World colonies to the first decade of the new millennium. Latinos are now the largest minority group in the United States, and their impact on American popular culture - from food to entertainment to literature - is greater than ever.

Emerging from the ruins of Aztec civilization and from centuries of Spanish contact with indigenous people, Mexican culture followed the Spanish colonial frontier northward and put its distinctive mark on what became the southwestern United States. Shaped by their Indian and Spanish ancestors, deeply influenced by Catholicism, and often struggling to respond to political and economic precarity, Mexicans play an important role in United States society even as the dominant Anglo culture strives to assimilate them.

This updated and expanded edition is the first and only book to offer a leadership model firmly based on the Latino experience and culture. By 2045, Latinos will make up one in four Americans. They are projected to be 78 percent of the new entries into the labor force in the next 10 years.

As the heyday of the Chicano Movement of the late 1960s to early '70s fades further into history and as more and more of its important figures pass on, so too does knowledge of its significance. Thus, Chicano Movement for Beginners is an important attempt to stave off historical amnesia. It seeks to shed light on the multifaceted civil rights struggle known as "El Movimiento" that galvanized the Mexican American community, from laborers to student activists, giving them not only a political voice to combat prejudice and inequality, but also a new sense of cultural awareness....

By the mid 1980s, the criminal underworld in the United States had become an ethnic polyglot; one of the most powerful illicit organizations was none other than the Cuban mob. Known on both sides of the law as "the Corporation", the Cuban mob's power stemmed from a criminal culture embedded in south Florida's exile community - those who had been chased from the island by Castro's revolution and planned to overthrow the Marxist dictator and reclaim their nation.

Growing up in Yakima, Washington, Noe Álvarez worked at an apple-packing plant alongside his mother. A university scholarship offered escape, but as a first-generation Latino college-goer, Álvarez struggled to fit in. At 19, he learned about a Native American/First Nations movement called the Peace and Dignity Journeys, epic marathons meant to renew cultural connections across North America. He dropped out of school and joined a group runners, all fleeing difficult beginnings. Telling their stories and his own, Álvarez writes about a four-month-long journey from Canada to Guatemala.

The Way That Leads Among the Lost reveals a hidden place where care and violence are impossible to separate: the anexos of Mexico City. The prizewinning anthropologist Angela Garcia takes us deep into the world of these small rooms, informal treatment centers for alcoholism, addiction, and mental illness, spread across Mexico City’s tenements and reaching into the United States.