New Latino(a) Topic Fiction and Nonfiction for March 2011
New Books by Ilan Stavans, Nicholasa Mohr, Henry Louis Gates Jr., and more
What is la hispanidad?: A conversation
(Joe R. and Teresa Lozano Long Series in Latin American and Latino Art and Culture) University of Texas Press (March 1, 2011)
ISBN-10: 0292725612 ISBN-13: 978-029272561
[Paperback]
Ilan Stavans (Author), Iván Jaksi (Author)
Natives of the Iberian Peninsula and the twenty countries of Latin America, as well as their kinsfolk who've immigrated to the United States and around the world, share a common quality or identity characterized as la hispanidad. Or do they?
In this lively, provocative book, two distinguished intellectuals, a cultural critic and a historian, engage in a series of probing conversations in which they try to discern the nature of la hispanidad and debate whether any such shared identity binds the world's nearly half billion people who are "Hispanic."
Their conversations range from La Reconquista and Spanish monarchs Ferdinand and Isabella, who united the Spanish nation while expelling its remaining Moors and Jews, to the fervor for el fútbol (soccer) that has swept much of Latin America today.
Along the way, they discuss a series of intriguing topics, including the complicated relationship between Latin America and the United States, Spanish language and the uses of Spanglish, complexities of race and ethnicity, nineteenth-century struggles for nationhood and twentieth-century identity politics, and popular culture from literary novels to telenovelas.
Woven throughout are the authors' own enlightening experiences of crossing borders and cultures in Mexico and Chile and the United States.
Sure to provoke animated conversations among its readers, What is la hispanidad? makes a convincing case that "our hispanidad is rooted in a changing tradition, flexible enough to persist beyond boundaries and circumstances. Let us not fix it with a definition, but allow it instead to travel, always."
The Norton Anthology of Latino Literature (College Edition)
Paperback
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company; College Edition edition (March 1, 2011)
ISBN-10: 0393975320 ISBN-13: 978-0393975321
Ilan Stavans (Editor), Edna Acosta-Belén (Editor), Harold Augenbraum (Editor), María Herrera-Sobek (Editor), Rolando Hinojosa (Editor), Gustavo Pérez Firmat (Editor)
This anthology includes the work of 201 Latino writers from Chicano, Puerto Rican, Cuban-American, and Dominican-American traditions, as well as writing from other Spanish-speaking countries.
Under the general editorship of award-winning cultural critic Ilan Stavans, The Norton Anthology of Latino Literature traces four centuries of writing, from letters to the Spanish crown by sixteenth-century conquistadors to the cutting-edge expressions of twenty-first-century cartoonistas and artists of reggaetón.
In six chronological sections — Colonization, Annexation, Acculturation, Upheaval, Into the Mainstream, and Popular Traditions — the anthology encompasses diverse genres, and it features writers such as José Martí, William Carlos Williams, Julia Alvarez, Oscar Hijuelos, Cristina García, Piri Thomas, Esmeralda Santiago, and Junot Díaz.
Thirteen years in the making, The Norton Anthology of Latino Literature sheds new light on "nuestra América" through a gathering of writing unprecedented in scope and vitality.
Paperback Reading level: Ages 4-8
Pinata Books (March 31, 2011)
ISBN-10: 155885696X ISBN-13: 978-1558856967
Nicholasa Mohr (Author, Illustrator)
"Damn you bastards, coming here making trouble. Bunch of animals." The two police offers responding to a call about an open fire hydrant lash out furiously at the Puerto Rican residents of New York City's El Barrio neighborhood.
It's the summer of 1941, and all ten-year-old Nilda wants to do is enjoy the cool water with her friends. But the policemen's curses end their fun, and their animosity is played out over and over again in Nilda's life. She is repeatedly treated with contempt and even disgust by adults in positions of authority: teachers, nurses and social workers.
At home, though, she is surrounded by a large and loving--if somewhat eccentric--family that supports and encourages her artistic abilities.
She experiences the onset of World War II and watches anxiously as several brothers go off to war; her stepfather s poor health means he can t work, causing serious financial difficulties for the family; one brother slinks off to the underworld, leaving behind a pregnant girlfriend, adding two more mouths to feed to the family s already dire situation.
Named an "Outstanding Book of the Year" by The New York Times and one of the "Best Books of the Year" by the American Library Association in 1973 when it was first published, Nicholasa Mohr's classic novel about life as an immigrant in New York City offers a poignant look at one young girl's experiences.
Issues of race, religion and machismo are realistically and movingly depicted in this groundbreaking coming-of-age novel that was one of the first by a Latina author to be hailed by the mainstream media
Sports and the Racial Divide: African American and Latino Experience in an Era of Change Paperback University Press of Mississippi (March 4, 2011)
ISBN-10: 1617030457 ISBN-13: 978-1617030451
Michael E. Lomax (Editor), Kenneth L. Shropshire (Foreword)
Essays exploring the complex and evolving status of athletes of color with essays by Ron Briley, Michael Ezra, Sarah K. Fields, Billy Hawkins, Jorge Iber, Kurt Kemper, Michael E. Lomax, Samuel O. Regalado, Richard Santillan, and Maureen Smith.
This anthology explores the intersection of race, ethnicity, and sports and analyzes the forces that shaped the African American and Latino sports experience in post-World War II America.
Contributors reveal that sports often reinforced dominant ideas about race and racial supremacy but that at other times sports became a platform for addressing racial and social injustices.
The African American sports experience represented the continuation of the ideas of Black Nationalism -- racial solidarity, black empowerment, and a determination to fight against white racism.
Three of the essayists discuss the protest at the 1968 Olympic Games in Mexico City. In football, baseball, basketball, boxing, and track and field, African American athletes moved toward a position of group strength, establishing their own values and simultaneously rejecting the cultural norms of whites.
Among Latinos, athletic achievement inspired community celebrations and became a way to express pride in ethnic and religious heritages as well as a diversion from the work week. Sports was a means by which leadership and survival tactics were developed and used in the political arena and in the fight for justice.
Michael E. Lomax is associate professor of health and sport studies at the University of Iowa and the author of Black Baseball Entrepreneurs, 1860-1901: Operating by Any Means Necessary. Kenneth L. Shropshire is David W. Hauck Professor at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania and director of the school's Sports Business initiative.
Hardcover
Reading level: Ages 4-8
Rayo (March 15, 2011)
ISBN-10: 0060581603 ISBN-13: 978-0060581602
Arthur Dorros (Author), Rudy Gutierrez (Illustrator)
"VÁmanos," MamÁ says.
"Let's go!"
Together we garden and bake.
We bike and paint a mural,
colorful and bright.
I do some things sola,
all by myself.
MamÁ says, "¡Perfecto!"—
just perfect!
With MamÁ, I feel like a girasol,
a sunflower, tall and proud.
For a bilingual girl and her mamÁ, a loving bond is about being together . . . and independent. Arthur Dorros's skillful and subtle blend of English and Spanish narrative, illustrated with bold, striking paintings by award-winning artist Rudy Gutierrez, offers readers a poignant reminder that every day with MamÁ is dulce — sweet!
Raceball: How the Major Leagues Colonized the Black and Latin Game Hardcover Beacon Press (March 1, 2011)
ISBN-10: 0807048054 ISBN-13: 978-0807048054
The colliding histories of black and Latino ballplayers in the major leagues have traditionally been told as a story of their shameful segregation and redemptive integration.
Jackie Robinson jumped baseball’s color line to much fanfare, but integration was painful as well as triumphal. It gutted the once-vibrant Negro Leagues and often subjected Latin players to Jim Crow racism.
Today, Major League Baseball tightens its grasp around the Caribbean’s burgeoning baseball academies, while at home it embraces, and exploits, the legacy of the Negro Leagues.
After peaking at 27 percent of all major leaguers in 1975, African Americans now make up less than one-tenth — a decline unimaginable in other men’s pro sports. The number of Latin Americans, by contrast, has exploded to over a quarter of all major leaguers and roughly half of those playing in the minors.
Award-winning historian Rob Ruck not only explains the catalyst for this sea change; he also breaks down the consequences that cut across society. Integration cost black and Caribbean societies control over their own sporting lives, changing the meaning of the sport, but not always for the better.
While it channeled black and Latino athletes into major league baseball, integration did little for the communities they left behind.
By looking at this history from the vantage point of black America and the Caribbean, a more complex story comes into focus, one largely missing from traditional narratives of baseball’s history. Raceball unveils a fresh and stunning truth: baseball has never been stronger as a business, never weaker as a game.
Listening to Latina/o Youth: Television Consumption Within Families (Mediated Youth)
Paperback Peter Lang Publishing; First printing edition (March 31, 2011)
ISBN-10: 1433107279 ISBN-13: 978-1433107276
Kristin C. Moran
In light of current and projected demographic changes in the U.S., this book examines the attention paid to Latina/o youth from mainstream media conglomerates and the subsequent impact of this attention.
In-depth interviews conducted within a family setting provide a rare glimpse into respondents media consumption patterns and process of reception, and explain the ways in which the media are woven into their daily lives.
The book critiques the tendency of mainstream media to reify and contain a Latina/o identity that is then sold back to youth in ways that limit Latino/a agency. Throughout the interviews, young people articulate a hybrid identity highlighting their bicultural experiences. Listening to Latina/o Youth ultimately recommends opening up the possibilities of representation to encourage the acceptance of new voices that challenge the current modes of media production.
South American Independence: Gender, Politics, Text (Liverpool Latin American Studies)
[Paperback] Liverpool University Press (March 2011)
ISBN-10: 1846316847 ISBN-13: 978-1846316845
Catherine Davies
The struggles for independence in Latin America during the first half of the nineteenth century were accompanied by a wide-ranging debate about political rights, nationality and citizenship. In "South American Independence", Catherine Davies, Claire Brewster and Hilary Owen investigate the neglected role of gender in that discussion.
Examining women writers from Brazil, Argentina, Chile, Peru, and Colombia, the book traces the contradictions inherent in revolutionary movements that, while arguing for the rights of all, remained ambivalent, at best, about the place of women. Through studies of both published and unpublished writings, South American Independence reveals the complex role of women in shaping the vexed ideologies of independence.
When Boys Become Parents: Adolescent Fatherhood in America Paperback Rutgers University Press (February 11, 2011)
ISBN-10: 0813550009 ISBN-13: 978-0813550008
"...adolescent fatherhood rates are higher among African-American and Latino youth than among teenagers from other racial and ethnic groups."
After school specials about teenage pregnancy abound. Whether in television or in society, the focus tends toward young girls coping with all of the emotional and physical burdens of pregnancy but rarely is the perspective of the teenage fathers portrayed.
In this informative book, Mark S. Kiselica draws on his many years of counseling teenage fathers to offer a compassionate look at the difficult life circumstances and the complicated hardships these young men experience. He dispels many of the myths surrounding teenage fatherhood and shows that, contrary to popular belief, these young men are often emotionally and physically involved in relationships with their partner and their child.
But without support and guidance from adults, these relationships often deteriorate in the first year of the child's life. Kiselica offers advice for how professionals and policy makers can assist these young men and improve services for them.
When Boys Become Parents provides a moving portrait of teenage fathers to any reader who wants to understand and help these young men to become more competent and loving parents during their journey to adulthood.
Urban Literacies: Critical Perspectives on Language, Learning, and Community (Language & Literacy) (Language and Literacy Series)
[Paperback] Teachers College Press (March 11, 2011)
ISBN-10: 0807751820 ISBN-13: 978-0807751824
Valerie Kinloc
In this collection of research on issues in urban education, new and emerging scholars of color in the field have authored theoretically rich and practically sound chapters that extend current conversations on the literate lives, academic achievements, and social networking systems of students of color in urban environments during and after school time.
The primary focus of this book is to closely and carefully investigate--through rigorous research, various theoretical orientations, and diverse methodologies--meanings of and current concerns with urban education in the lives of children, youth, and adults of color across three intersecting spectrums.
Handbook of Hispanic Sociolinguistics (Blackwell Handbooks in Linguistics)
Hardcover Wiley-Blackwell (March 15, 2011)
ISBN-10: 1405195002 ISBN-13: 978-1405195003
Manuel Diaz-Campos (Editor)
This Handbook provides a comprehensive, state-of-the-art overview of theoretical and descriptive research in contemporary Hispanic sociolinguistics.
Offers the first authoritative collection exploring research strands in the emerging and fast-moving field of Spanish sociolinguistics
Highlights the contributions that Spanish Sociolinguistics has offered to general linguistic theory
Brings together a team of the top researchers in the field to present the very latest perspectives and discussions of key issues
Covers a wealth of topics including: variationist approaches, Spanish and its importance in the U.S., language planning, and other topics focused on the social aspects of Spanish
Includes several varieties of Spanish, reflecting the rich diversity of dialects spoken in the Americas and Spain
[Hardcover] NYU Press (March 4, 2011)
ISBN-10: 0814732984 ISBN-13: 978-0814732984
12.5 million Africans were shipped to the New World during the Middle Passage.
While just over 11.0 million survived the arduous journey, only about 450,000 of them arrived in the United States. The rest — over ten and a half million — were taken to the Caribbean and Latin America.
This astonishing fact changes our entire picture of the history of slavery in the Western hemisphere, and of its lasting cultural impact. These millions of Africans created new and vibrant cultures, magnificently compelling syntheses of various African, English, French, Portuguese, and Spanish influences.
Despite their great numbers, the cultural and social worlds that they created remain largely unknown to most Americans, except for certain popular, cross-over musical forms.
So Henry Louis Gates, Jr. set out on a quest to discover how Latin Americans of African descent live now, and how the countries of their acknowledge — or deny — their African past; how the fact of race and African ancestry play themselves out in the multicultural worlds of the Caribbean and Latin America.
Starting with the slave experience and extending to the present, Gates unveils the history of the African presence in six Latin American countries — Brazil, Cuba, the Dominican Republic, Haiti, Mexico, and Peru — through art, music, cuisine, dance, politics, and religion, but also the very palpable presence of anti-black racism that has sometimes sought to keep the black cultural presence from view.
In Brazil, he delves behind the façade of Carnaval to discover how this ‘rainbow nation’ is waking up to its legacy as the world's largest slave economy.
In Cuba, he finds out how the culture, religion, politics and music of this island is inextricably linked to the huge amount of slave labor imported to produce its enormously profitable 19th century sugar industry, and how race and racism have fared since Fidel Castro's Communist revolution in 1959.
In Haiti, he tells the story of the birth of the first-ever black republic, and finds out how the slaves's hard fought liberation over Napoleon Bonaparte's French Empire became a double-edged sword.
In Mexico and Peru, he explores the almost unknown history of the significant numbers of black people — far greater than the number brought to the United States — brought to these countries as early as the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, and the worlds of culture that their descendants have created in Vera Cruz on the Gulf of Mexico, the Costa Chica region on the Pacific, and in and around Lima, Peru.
Professor Gates' journey becomes ours as we are introduced to the faces and voices of the descendants of the Africans who created these worlds. He shows both the similarities and distinctions between these cultures, and how the New World manifestations are rooted in, but distinct from, their African antecedents.
“Black in Latin America” is the third installment of Gates's documentary trilogy on the Black Experience in Africa, the United States, and in Latin America. In America Behind the Color Line, Professor Gates examined the fortunes of the black population of modern-day America.
In Wonders of the African World, he embarked upon a series of journeys to reveal the history of African culture. Now, he brings that quest full-circle in an effort to discover how Africa and Europe combined to create the vibrant cultures of Latin America, with a rich legacy of thoughtful, articulate subjects whose stories are astonishingly moving and irresistibly compelling.
Vulnerable Populations and Transformative Law Teaching: A Critical Reader Paperback Carolina Academic Press (March 15, 2011)
ISBN-10: 1594609497 ISBN-13: 978-1594609497
Society of American Law Teachers (Author, Editor), Golden Gate University School of Law (Author, Editor)
The essays included in this volume began as presentations at the March 19-20, 2010 ''Vulnerable Populations and Economic Realities'' teaching conference organized and hosted by Golden Gate University School of Law and co-sponsored by the Society of American Law Teachers (SALT).
That conference, generously funded by a grant from The Elfenworks Foundation, brought together law faculty, practitioners, and students to reexamine how issues of race, gender, sexual identity, nationality, disability, and generally outsider status are linked to poverty.
Contributors have transformed their presentations into essays, offering a variety of roadmaps for incorporating these issues into the law school curriculum, both inside the classroom as well as in clinical and externship settings, study abroad, and social activism.
These essays provide glimpses into ''teaching moments,'' both intentional and organic, to help trigger opportunities for students and faculty to question their own perceptions and experiences about who creates and interprets law, and who has access to power and the force of law.
This book expands the parameters of law teaching so that this next generation of attorneys will be dedicated to their roles as public citizens, broadening the availability of justice.
Contributors include: John Payton; Richard Delgado; Steven W. Bender; Sarah Valentine; Deborah Post and Deborah Zalesne; Gilbert Paul Carrasco; Michael L. Perlin and Deborah Dorfman; Robin R. Runge; Cynthia D. Bond; Florence Roisman Wagman; Doug Simpson; Anne Marie Harkins and Robin Clark; Douglas Colbert; Raquel Aldana and Leticia Saucedo, Marci Seville; Deirdre Bowen, Daniel Bonilla Maldonado, Kathleen Neal Cleaver, Colin Crawford, and James Forman, Jr.; Susan Rutberg; Mary B. Culbert and Sara Campos; MaryBeth Musumeci, Elizabeth Weeks Leonard, and Brutrinia D. Arellano; Libby Adler; and Paulette J. Williams. The editorial board includes Raquel Aldana, Steven Bender, Olympia Duhart, Michele Benedetto Neitz, Angela Onwuachi-Willig, Hari Osofsky, and Hazel Weiser.
Posts
