Primary Resources for Latin American/Latinx Studies

Today the achievement gap is hotly debated among pundits, politicians, and educators. In particular this conversation often focuses on the two fastest-growing demographic groups in the United States: Asian Americans and Latinos. In Academic Profiling, Gilda L. Ochoa addresses this so-called gap by going directly to the source. At one California public high school where the controversy is lived every day, Ochoa turns to the students, teachers, and parents to learn about the very real disparities--in opportunity, status, treatment, and assumptions--that lead to more than just gaps in achievement.In candid and at times heart-wrenching detail, the students tell stories of encouragement and neglect on their paths to graduation. Separated by unequal middle schools and curriculum tracking, they are divided by race, class, and gender. While those channeled into an International Baccalaureate Program boast about Socratic classes and stress-release sessions, students left out of such programs commonly describe uninspired teaching and inaccessible counseling. Students unequally labeled encounter differential policing and assumptions based on their abilities--disparities compounded by the growth in the private tutoring industry that favors the already economically privileged.Despite the entrenched inequality in today's schools, Academic Profiling finds hope in the many ways students and teachers are affirming identities, creating alternative spaces, and fostering critical consciousness. When Ochoa shares the results of her research with the high school, we see the new possibilities--and limits--of change.

Beyond Borders: A History of Mexican Migration to the UnitedStates details the origins and evolution of the movement ofpeople from Mexico into the United States from the firstsignificant flow across the border at the turn of the twentiethcentury up to the present day. Considers the issues from the perspectives of both the UnitedStates and Mexico Offers a reasoned assessment of the factors that drive Mexicanimmigration, explains why so many of the policies enacted inWashington have only worsened the problem, and suggests what policyoptions might prove more effective Argues that the problem of Mexican immigration can only besolved if Mexico and the United States work together to reduce thedisequilibrium that propels Mexican immigrants to the UnitedStates

A symbol of counterculture worldwide, Ernesto "Che" Guevara is one of the most, if not the most, recognizable and influential revolutionary figures of the twentieth century. From the pages of history textbooks to silk-screened T-shirts at Urban Outfitters, his mythologized face is positively unavoidable. But what, exactly, does this glorified image stand for? During his life, and perhaps even more since his death, Che has elicited controversy and wildly divergent opinions as to who he was and what he represented. InChe: A Graphic Biography, Sid Jacobson and Ernie Colón--the graphic duo who made the 9/11 Commission Report understandable in their bestsellingThe 9/11 Report: A Graphic Adaptationand who most recently explained the ongoing war on terror inAfter 9/11--have come together again to give a real portrait of Ernesto Guevara de la Serna. Following Che from his fabled motorcycle journeys with Alberto Granado as a young medical student to his eventual execution at the hands of Bolivian soldiers and CIA operatives,Che: A Graphic Biographynot only provides a concrete time line of his life but also gives a broader understanding of his beliefs, his legacy, and Latin American politics during the mid-twentieth century.

This concise history looks at Mexico from political, economic, and cultural perspectives, portraying Mexico's struggle to break out of the colonial past and assert its viability as a sovereign state in a competitive world. In this third edition, Hamnett adds new material on Mexico's regional and international roles as they have emerged in the twenty-first century, including membership of supra-national organizations (including and moving beyond NAFTA), the Mexican drug war between government officials and gangs, and the immigration and border crises within the United States. He also discusses Mexico's relationship to the outside world, particularly its efforts to broaden the range of political and commercial associations, especially with European countries, the rest of Latin America, and the Pacific Rim through trade agreements with supra-national organizations.

Dreamers is a movement book for the generation brought to the United States as children-and now fighting to live here legally Of the approximately twelve million undocumented immigrants living in the United States, as many as two million came as children. They grow up here, going to elementary, middle, and high school, and then the country they call home won't-in most states-offer financial aid for college and they're unable to be legally employed. In 2001, US senator Dick Durbin introduced the DREAM Act to Congress, an initiative that would allow these young people to become legal residents if they met certain requirements. And now, more than ten years later, in the face of congressional inertia and furious opposition from some, the DREAM Act has yet to be passed. But recently, this young generation has begun organizing, and with their rallying cry "Undocumented, Unapologetic, and Unafraid" they are the newest face of the human rights movement. In Dreamers, Eileen Truax illuminates the stories of these men and women who are living proof of a complex and sometimes hidden political reality that calls into question what it truly means to be American.

Because of our shared English language, as well as the celebrated origin tales of theMayflower and the rebellion of the British colonies, the United States has prized its Anglo heritage above all others. However, as Carrie Gibson explains with great depth and clarity inEl Norte, the nation has much older Spanish roots--ones that have long been unacknowledged or marginalized. The Hispanic past of the United States predates the arrival of the Pilgrims by a century, and has been every bit as important in shaping the nation as it exists today. El Norte chronicles the sweeping and dramatic history of Hispanic North America from the arrival of the Spanish in the early 16th century to the present--from Ponce de Leon's initial landing in Florida in 1513 to Spanish control of the vast Louisiana territory in 1762 to the Mexican-American War in 1846 and up to the more recent tragedy of post-hurricane Puerto Rico and the ongoing border acrimony with Mexico. Interwoven in this stirring narrative of events and people are cultural issues that have been there from the start but which are unresolved to this day: language, belonging, community, race, and nationality. Seeing them play out over centuries provides vital perspective at a time when it is urgently needed. In 1883, Walt Whitman meditated on his country's Spanish past: "We Americans have yet to really learn our own antecedents, and sort them, to unify them," predicting that "to that composite American identity of the future, Spanish character will supply some of the most needed parts." That future is here, andEl Norte, a stirring and eventful history in its own right, will make a powerful impact on our national understanding.

Over recent decades, the Southeast has become a new frontier for Latin American migration to and within the United States, and North Carolina has had one of the fastest growing Latino populations in the nation. Here, Hannah Gill offers North Carolinians from all walks of life a better understanding of their Latino neighbors, bringing light instead of heat to local and national debates on immigration. Exploring the larger social forces behind demographic shifts, Gill shows both how North Carolina communities are facing the challenges and opportunities presented by these changes and how migrants experience the economic and social realities of their new lives. Latinos are no longer just visitors to the state but are part of the inevitably changing, long-term makeup of its population. Today, emerging migrant communities and the integration of Latino populations remain salient issues as the U.S. Congress stands on the verge of formulating comprehensive immigration reform for the first time in nearly three decades. Gill makes connections between hometowns and the increasing globalization of people, money, technology, and culture by shedding light on the many diverse North Carolina residents who are highly visible yet, as she shows, invisible at the same time.

The bestselling coming-of-age classic, acclaimed by critics, beloved by readers of all ages, taught in schools and universities alike, and translated around the world from the winner of the 2018 PEN/Nabokov Award for Achievement in International Literature. The House on Mango Street is the remarkable story of Esperanza Cordero, a young Latina girl growing up in Chicago, inventing for herself who and what she will become. Told in a series of vignettes-sometimes heartbreaking, sometimes deeply joyous-Sandra Cisneros' masterpiece is a classic story of childhood and self-discovery. Few other books in our time have touched so many readers.

National Book Award Finalist! Instant New York Times Bestseller! The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian meets Jane the Virgin in this poignant but often laugh-out-loud funny contemporary YA about losing a sister and finding yourself amid the pressures, expectations, and stereotypes of growing up in a Mexican-American home.    Perfect Mexican daughters do not go away to college. And they do not move out of their parents' house after high school graduation. Perfect Mexican daughters never abandon their family.   But Julia is not your perfect Mexican daughter. That was Olga's role.   Then a tragic accident on the busiest street in Chicago leaves Olga dead and Julia left behind to reassemble the shattered pieces of her family. And no one seems to acknowledge that Julia is broken, too. Instead, her mother seems to channel her grief into pointing out every possible way Julia has failed.   But it's not long before Julia discovers that Olga might not have been as perfect as everyone thought. With the help of her best friend Lorena, and her first love, first everything boyfriend Connor, Julia is determined to find out. Was Olga really what she seemed? Or was there more to her sister's story? And either way, how can Julia even attempt to live up to a seemingly impossible ideal? "Alive and crackling--a gritty tale wrapped in a page-turner. "--The New York Times   "Unique and fresh." --Entertainment Weekly "A standout." --NPR

On a deserted mountain road in the Dominican Republic in 1960, three young women from a pious Catholic family were assassinated after visiting their husbands who had been jailed as suspected rebel leaders. The Mirabal sisters, thus martyred, became mythical figures in their country, where they are known as Las Mariposas (the butterflies). Three decades later, Julia Alvarez, daughter of the Dominican Republic and author of the acclaimed How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents, brings the Mirabal sisters back to life in this extraordinary novel. Each of the sisters speaks in her own voice; beginning as young girls in the 1940s, their stories vary from hair ribbons to gun-running to prison torture. Their story is framed by their surviving sister who tells her own tale of suffering and dedication to the memory of Las Mariposas. This inspired portrait of four women is a haunting statement about the human cost of political oppression, and is destined to take its place alongside Garcia Marquez's One Hundred Years of Solitude and Allende's The House of the Spirits as one of the great 20th-century Latin American novels.

In their youth, Florentino Ariza and Fermina Daza fall passionately in love. When Fermina eventually chooses to marry a wealthy, well-born doctor, Florentino is devastated, but he is a romantic. As he rises in his business career he whiles away the years in 622 affairs-yet he reserves his heart for Fermina. Her husband dies at last, and Florentino purposefully attends the funeral. Fifty years, nine months, and four days after he first declared his love for Fermina, he will do so again. With humorous sagacity and consummate craft, García Márquez traces an exceptional half-century story of unrequited love. Though it seems never to be conveniently contained, love flows through the novel in many wonderful guises-joyful, melancholy, enriching, ever surprising.

The brilliant, bestselling, landmark novel that tells the story of the Buendia family, and chronicles the irreconcilable conflict between the desire for solitude and the need for love--in rich, imaginative prose that has come to define an entire genre known as "magical realism." (Book Jacket Status: Jacketed)