Celebrate Latinx and Hispanic Heritage month with these must-read books available at Howe or online as eBooks.
Violeta by Isabel Allende
“Violeta viene al mundo un tormentoso día de 1920, siendo la primera niña de una familia de cinco bulliciosos hermanos. Desde el principio su vida estará marcada por acontecimientos extraordinarios, pues todavía se sienten las ondas expansivas de la Gran Guerra cuando la gripe española llega a las orillas de su país sudamericano natal, casi en el momento exacto de su nacimiento. Gracias a la clarividencia del padre, la familia saldrá indemne de esta crisis para darse de bruces con una nueva, cuando la Gran Depresión altera la elegante vida urbana que Violeta ha conocido hasta ahora. Su familia lo perderá todo y se verá obligada a retirarse a una región salvaje y remota del país. Allí Violeta alcanzará la mayoría de edad y tendrá su primer pretendiente... En una carta dirigida a una persona a la que ama por encima de todas las demás, Violeta rememora devastadores desengaños amorosos y romances apasionados, momentos de pobreza y también de prosperidad, pérdidas terribles e inmensas alegrías. Moldearán su vida algunos de los grandes sucesos de la historia: la lucha por los derechos de la mujer, el auge y caída de tiranos y, en última instancia, no una, sino dos pandemias”
“Violeta comes into the world on a stormy day in 1920, the first girl in a family with 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 everything 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. She tells her story in the form of a letter to someone she loves above all others, recounting times of devastating heartbreak and passionate affairs, poverty and wealth, terrible loss and immense joy. Her life is 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.”
Olga dies dreaming by Xochitl Gonzalez
“A blazing talent debuts with the tale of a status-driven wedding planner grappling with her social ambitions, absent mother, and Puerto Rican roots, all in the wake of Hurricane María. It's 2017, and Olga and her brother, Pedro Prieto Acevedo, are bold-faced names in their hometown of New York. Prieto is a popular congressman representing their gentrifying Latinx neighborhood in Brooklyn while Olga is the tony wedding planner for Manhattan's powerbrokers. Despite their alluring public lives, behind closed doors things are far less rosy. Sure, Olga can orchestrate the love stories of the 1%, but she can't seem to find her own...until she meets Matteo, who forces her to confront the effects of long-held family secrets... Twenty-seven years ago, their mother, Blanca, a Young Lord-turned-radical, abandoned her children to advance a militant political cause, leaving them to be raised by their grandmother. Now, with the winds of hurricane season, Blanca has come barreling back into their lives. Set against the backdrop of New York City in the months surrounding the most devastating hurricane in Puerto Rico's history, Xochitl Gonzalez's Olga Dies Dreaming is a story that examines political corruption, familial strife and the very notion of the American dream-all while asking what it really means to weather a storm"
Brown neon by Raquel Gutiérrez
“Part butch memoir, part ekphrastic travel diary, part queer family tree, Raquel Gutiérrez’s debut essay collection Brown Neon gleans insight from the sediment of land and relationships. For Gutiérrez, terrain is essential to understanding that no story, no matter how personal, is separate from the space where it unfolds. Whether contemplating the value of adobe as both vernacular architecture and commodified art object, highlighting the feminist wounding and transphobic apparitions haunting the multi-generational lesbian social fabric, or recalling a failed romance, Gutiérrez traverses complex questions of gender, class, identity, and citizenship with curiosity and nuance.”
El presidente y la rana by Carolina De Robertis (Find the English edition here)
“En su casa modesta a las afueras de la ciudad, el expresidente de un país latinoamericano anónimo recibe a una periodista en su famoso jardín, para discutir su legado y las circunstancias funestas que amenazan a la democracia en todo el mundo. A él lo conocían como el Presidente Más Pobre del Mundo, y su reputación es mítica: fue guerrillero y lo encarcelaron por incitar a la revolución antes de convertirse en la imagen de la justicia, los derechos humanos y el altruismo para su país. Ahora, mientras habla con la periodista, se pregunta si debería revelarle el extraño secreto de su encarcelamiento: mientras lo tenían en un confinamiento solitario brutal, sobrevivió, en parte, discutiendo sobre la revolución, la búsqueda de la dignidad y qué significa amar a un país con la única criatura que le contestaba: una rana insolente. Tan cautivadora como innovadora, vívida, conmovedora y llena de ingenio y humor, El presidente y la rana explora la resiliencia de la naturaleza humana y lo que es posible cuando el peligro se cierne sobre nosotros. Mientras nos transporta entre una lúgubre celda y el exuberante jardín del presidente, el relato atraviesa todas las fronteras y nos invita a pensar desde cero qué significa gobernar, atreverse a hacer las cosas y soñar.”
“From the acclaimed author of Cantoras comes a mystical and heartening tale about seeking justice and the power of memory. In his modest home at the edge of town, the former President of a Latin American country receives a journalist in his iconic gardens to discuss his legacy and the dire circumstances that threaten democracy around the globe. Once known as the Poorest President in the World, his reputation is the stuff of myth: a former guerilla who was jailed for inciting revolution before becoming the face of justice, human rights, and selflessness within his nation. And yet, he is tempted to reveal a secret from his past: while he was imprisoned and held in solitary confinement--due to madness or in a surreal twist--he survived in part by conversing with the only creature who ever spoke back, a loud-mouth frog, about revolution, the quest for dignity, and what it means to love a country. As engrossing as it is innovative, The President and the Frog explores the resilience of the human spirit and what is possible when danger looms. Ferrying us between a grim jail cell and lush garden, De Robertis emphasizes that even the smallest voice can change the world. Vivid, heartfelt, and full of wit and humor, The President and the Frog reaches beyond all borders and dares us to be human in the face of chaos”
Mexican Gothic by Silvia Moreno-Garcia
“After receiving a frantic letter from her newly-wed cousin, Noemí Taboada heads to High Place, a distant house in the Mexican countryside. Noemí is an unlikely rescuer : She's a glamorous debutante, more suited for cocktail parties than amateur sleuthing. But she's also tough, smart, and not afraid : not of her cousin's new English husband, a stranger who is both menacing and alluring ; not of his father, the ancient patriarch who seems fascinated by Noemí ; and not even of the house itself, which begins to invade Noemí's dreams with visions of blood and doom. Noemí's only ally in this inhospitable place is the family's youngest son. But he too may be hiding a dark secret. As Noemí begins to unearth stories of violence and madness, she is slowly drawn into a terrifying yet seductive world - a world that may be impossible to escape.”
Latina lives, Latina narratives : influential essays by Vicki L. Ruiz ; edited by Miroslava Chávez-García
“This book brings together the most influential and widely known writings of Vicki L. Ruiz. For nearly forty years, Ruiz has produced scholarship that has provided the foundation for a rich and nuanced understanding of the ways in which Chicanas and Latinas negotiate the structures impinging on their everyday lives. The articles reflect the evolution of Ruiz's intellectual contributions as well as her commitment to integrating feminist history, theory, and methodology, and show how she has generously offered insights, reflections, and humor in helping us define and shape who we are. It fulfills a much-needed demand in the teaching of women's, Chicana/o, Latina/o, and labor history.”
The Book of Wanderers by Reyes Ramirez
“What do a family of luchadores, a teen on the run, a rideshare driver, a lucid dreamer, a migrant worker in space, a mecha soldier, and a zombie-and-neo-Nazi fighter have in common? Reyes Ramirez's dynamic short story collection follows new lineages of Mexican and Salvadoran diasporas traversing life in Houston, across borders, and even on Mars. Themes of wandering weave throughout each story, bringing feelings of unease and liberation as characters navigate cultural, physical, and psychological separation and loss from one generation to the next in a tumultuous nation. The Book of Wanderers deeply explores Houston, a Gulf Coast metropolis that incorporates Southern, Western, and Southwestern identities near the borderlands with a connection to the cosmos. As such, each story becomes increasingly further removed from our lived reality, engaging numerous genres from emotionally touching realist fiction to action-packed speculative fiction, as well as hallucinatory realism, magical realism, noir, and science fiction. Fascinating characters and unexpected plots unpack what it means to be Latinx in contemporary--and perhaps future--America. The characters work, love, struggle, and never stop trying to control their reality. They dream of building communities and finding peace. How can they succeed if they must constantly leave one place for another? In a nation that demands assimilation, how can they define themselves when they have to start anew with each generation? The characters in The Book of Wanderers create their own lineages, philosophies for life, and markers for their humanity at the cost of home. So they remain wanderers . . .”
Ethnographic refusals, unruly Latinidades edited by Alex E. Chávez and Gina M. Pérez ; foreword by Arlene M. Dávila
“Ethnographers increasingly train with community members to work as insider-scholars, collaborate on the design and implementation of research, and employ a variety of techniques to develop analyses that may lead to significant policy changes. The contributors in Ethnographic Refusals, Unruly Latinidades highlight the value of 'radical inclusion' in their research and call for a critical self-reflexivity that marshalls the power of bearing witness to move from rhetoric to praxis in support of these methodologies within anthropological perspectives. The essays in this collection do not offer simple solutions to histories of colonialism, patriarchy, and misogyny through which gender binaries and racial hierarches have been imposed and reproduced, but rather provide a crucial opportunity for reflection on and continued reimagination of the contours of Latinidad. These scholars deploy Latinx strategically as part of ongoing dialogues, understanding that their terminologies are inherently imprecise, contested, and constantly shifting. Each chapter explores how Latinx ethnographers and interlocutors work together in contexts of refusal--ever mindful of how power shapes these encounters and the analyses that emerge from them--as well as the extraordinary possibilities offered by ethnography and its role in ongoing social transformation.”
Queering Mesoamerican diasporas : remembering Xicana indígena ancestries by Susy J. Zepeda
“Acts of remembering offer a path to decolonization for Indigenous peoples forcibly dislocated from their culture, knowledge, and land. Susy J. Zepeda highlights the often overlooked yet intertwined legacies of Chicana feminisms and queer decolonial theory through the work of select queer Indígena cultural producers and thinkers. By tracing the ancestries and silences of gender-nonconforming people of color, she addresses colonial forms of epistemic violence and methods of transformation, in particular spirit research. Zepeda also uses archival materials, raised ceremonial altars, and analysis of decolonial artwork in conjunction with oral histories to explore the matriarchal roots of Chicana/x and Latina/x feminisms. As she shows, these feminisms are forms of knowledge that people can remember through Indigenous-centered visual narratives, cultural wisdom, and spirit practices. A fascinating exploration of hidden Indígena histories and silences, Queering Mesoamerican Diasporas blends scholarship with spirit practices to reimagine the root work, dis/connection to land, and the political decolonization of Xicana/x peoples.”
How to Date a Flying Mexican : New and Collected Stories by Daniel A. Olivas
“How to Date a Flying Mexican is a collection of stories derived from Chicano and Mexican culture but ranging through fascinating literary worlds of magical realism, fairy tales, fables, and dystopian futures. The characters confront--both directly and obliquely--questions of morality, justice, and self-determination. The collection is made up of Daniel A. Olivas's favorite previously published stories, along with two new stories--one dystopian and the other mythical--that challenge the Trump administration's anti-immigration rhetoric and policies. Readers will encounter a world filled with both the magical and the quotidian: a man with twelve fingers who finds himself on a mystical date with a woman, God who appears in the form of a scrawny chicken, a woman who bravely fights back against her abuser, and Aztec gods searching for relevance after the Spanish conquest--just to name a few of the unforgettable characters populating these pages. The book draws together some of Olivas's most unforgettable and strange tales, allowing readers to experience his very distinct, and very Chicano, fiction.”
Latina leadership : language and literacy education across communities edited by Laura Gonzales and Michelle Hall Kells
“This notable collection of ten essays by Latina educators features personal stories of mentorship and leadership, and serves as a resource for teachers and activists seeking to meet the language and literacy needs of their students and communities”