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In the title story of this collection, Isabela is minding her family’s restaurant, drinking her dad’s beer, when Frida Kahlo and the Virgen de Guadalupe walk in. Even though they’re dressed like cholas, the girl immediately recognizes Frida’s uni-brow and La Virgen’s crown. They want to give her advice about the quinceanera her parents are forcing on her. In fact, their lecture (don’t get pregnant, go to school, be proud of your indigenous roots) helps Isabela to escape her parents’ physical and sexual abuse. But can she really run away from the self-hatred they’ve created? These inter-related stories, mostly set in East Los Angeles, uncover the lives of a conflicted Mexican-...
Mariana Sánchez Celis has traveled the world as a pianist trained at the Juilliard School of Music. But when her mother has a stroke and her beloved uncle suddenly disappears, Mariana must put her life on hold to return to her home in Ayotlan, Mexico. She soon discovers her town is no longer the place she remembers. Ayotlan’s beaches, sea turtle colonies, and historic center are decimated under decades of neglect and abuse. What part did her late father have in this? And could it be related to her uncle’s disappearance? When Fernanda Lucero, a member of the indigenous Concáac people, convinces Mariana to join her sea turtle and architectural conservation projects, the deepening love be...
The colors of Hispaniola burst into life in this striking, evocative debut picture book that celebrates the joy of being Dominican. If Dominican were a color, it would be the sunset in the sky, blazing red and burning bright. If Dominican were a color, it’d be the roar of the ocean in the deep of the night, With the moon beaming down rays of sheer delight. The palette of the Dominican Republic is exuberant and unlimited. Maiz comes up amarillo, the blue-black of dreams washes over sandy shores, and people’s skin can be the shade of cinnamon in cocoa or of mahogany. This exuberantly colorful, softly rhyming picture book is a gentle reminder that a nation’s hues are as wide as nature itself.
Dew on the Thorn seeks to recreate the life of Texas Mexicans as Anglo culture was gradually encroaching upon them. Gonzalez provides us with a richly detailed portrait of South Texas, focusing on the cultural traditions of Texas Mexicans at a time when the divisions of class and race were pressing on the established way of life.
NATIONAL BESTSELLER In Renaissance Florence, a young artist searching for her missing mother is discovered by arch-rivals Michelangelo and Leonardo da Vinci In Tuscany during the early 1500s, Beatrice, a peasant girl, finds herself alone in the countryside after her father is killed and her mother disappears into the walled city of Florence. Barefoot and defiant, Beatrice enters the city to sell her family’s olive oil to the artists who toil to create masterworks that will elevate the status of the republic. While selling her wares, Beatrice befriends Michelangelo as he struggles to sculpt David and helps heal a melancholic woman who is having her portrait painted by the brilliant but agin...
Longlisted for the National Book Award for Translated Literature A dreamlike evocation of a generation that grew up in the shadow of a dictatorship in 1980s Chile Space Invaders is the story of a group of childhood friends who, in adulthood, are preoccupied by uneasy memories and visions of their classmate Estrella González Jepsen. In their dreams, they catch glimpses of Estrella’s braids, hear echoes of her voice, and read old letters that eventually, mysteriously, stopped arriving. They recall regimented school assemblies, nationalistic class performances, and a trip to the beach. Soon it becomes clear that Estrella’s father was a ranking government officer implicated in the violent c...
Beloved bestselling Latino authors, including Esmeralda Santiago, Carolina De Robertis, and Luis Alberto Urrea share moving personal stories of the many ways that sisterly bonds have powerfully impacted their lives. Friendships can bring us peace, fill the emotional shortcomings in our romantic relationships, and help us remember what lies deep inside every one of us. For more than twelve years, the international organization Las Comadres Para Las Americas™ has been bringing together thousands of Latinas to count on, lean on, help, and advise one another. Comadre is a powerful term. It encompasses the most important relationships that exist between women: best friends, confidants, coworker...
Set in one of Tucson’s first tamal and tortilla factories, The Molino is a hybrid memoir that reckons with one family’s loss of home, food, and faith. Weaving together history, culture, and Mexican food traditions, Melani Martinez shares the story of her family’s life and work in the heart of their downtown eatery, El Rapido. Opened by Martinez’s great-grandfather, Aurelio Perez, in 1933, El Rapido served tamales and burritos to residents and visitors to Tucson’s historic Barrio Presidio for nearly seventy years. For the family, the factory that bound them together was known for the giant corn grinder churning behind the scenes—the molino. With clear eyes and warm humor, Martinez...
The writer Jovita González was a long memeber- and ultimately seved as president- of Texas Folklore Society, which strve to preserve the oral traditions and customs of her native state. Many of the folklore-based stories in this volume were published by González in periodicals such as Southwest Review from the 1920s through the 1940s but have been gathered here for the first time. Sergio Reyna has brought together more than thirty narratives by González and arranged them into Animal Tales (such as "The Mescal-Drinking Horse"); Tales of Humans ("The Bullet-Swallower"); Tales of Popular Customs ("Shelling Corn by Moonlight); Religious Tales ("The Guadalupana Vine); Tales of Mexican Ancestrors ("Ambriosio the Indian); and Tales of Ghosts, Demons, and Buried Treasure ("The Woman Who Lost Her Soul"). Reyna also provides a helpful introduction that succinctly surveys the authors life and work, analyzing her writings within their historical and cultural contexts.
In Conflict in Fourteenth-Century Iberia Donald Kagay and Andrew Villalon explore the background, administrative, diplomatic, economic, and military results, and the aftermath of the War of the Two Pedros between Castile and the Crown of Aragon (1356-1366) and the Castilian Civil War (1366-1369).