Latin American Studies

This important book from a Pulitzer Prize finalist follows the brutal journey a group of men take to cross the Mexican border: "the single most compelling, lucid, and lyrical contemporary account of the absurdity of U.S. border policy" (The Atlantic). In May 2001, a group of men attempted to...

From the author of For Brown Girls with Sharp Edges and Tender Hearts, a celebration of the women at the heart of Latine families. “This love letter to intergenerational relationships opens every window and door to one’s heart... A healing work of art.” —Yesika Salgado, author of...

AN NPR BEST BOOK OF 2024 An award-winning journalist's exploration of how race, identity and political trauma have influenced the rise in far-right sentiment among Latinos, and how this group can shape American politics “A deeply reported, surprisingly personal exploration of a phenomenon...

Spell work, spiritual cleansing, herbal magic, how to protect against the Evil Eye, and cast, break, and avert hexes and curses. Mexican witchcraft, or brujeria, has long been an integral part of traditional Mexican culture that permeates all strata of social hierarchy, ethnicity, or level of...

An intersectional history of the shared struggle for African American and Latinx civil rights Spanning more than two hundred years, An African American and Latinx History of the United States is a revolutionary, politically charged narrative history, arguing that the “Global South” was...

Esmeralda Santiago reminisces about her childhood in Puerto Rico and her early years in Brooklyn as the oldest of seven (soon to be 11) children. Her upbringing is turbulent on account of her parents’ relentless fighting, which only ever seems to stop when they have another baby....

A generation of Americans came of age boycotting grapes, swept up in a movement that vanquished California's most powerful industry and accomplished the unthinkable....

Latinos have long influenced everything from electoral politics to popular culture‚ yet many people instinctively regard them as recent immigrants rather than a longstanding racial group. In Inventing Latinos‚ Laura Gomez illuminates the fascinating race-making‚ unmaking‚ and remaking of...

Just Like Us tells the story of four high school students whose parents entered this country illegally from Mexico....

This poignant and poetic 2003 Pulitzer Prize-winning play captures 1929 Florida at a time when cigars are still rolled by hand and "lectors" are employed to educate and entertain the workers....

Between 1910 and 1920, vigilantes and law enforcement-including the renowned Texas Rangers - killed Mexican residents with impunity. The full extent of the violence was known only to the relatives of the victims....

The "scrupulously detailed" (Los Angeles Times) story of how the fight to build Dodgers Stadium, and transform Los Angeles into a big league city, came at the cost of everyday Angelenos Dodger Stadium is an American icon. But the story of how it came to be goes far beyond baseball. The hills...

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...

An ambitious memoir in essays by beloved bestselling author Reyna Grande that illuminates the hidden cost of the American Dream and the complex journey of healing that follows survival. What is the true power of stories? Can they heal the jagged edges of a traumatic childhood? Is the cost of...

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....

A rarely seen female perspective on gang life, this raw and powerful memoir tells not only of one woman's struggle to survive the streets but also of her ascent to the top ranks of the new Mafia....

At 15, Victor Rios found himself a human target - flat on his ass amid a hail of shotgun fire, desperate for money and a place on the street....

The deeply reported story of identical twin brothers who escape El Salvador's violence to build new lives in California—fighting to survive, to stay, and to belong. Growing up in rural El Salvador in the wake of the civil war, the United States was a distant fantasy to identical twins Ernesto...

In The Team That Changed Baseball: Roberto Clemente and the 1971 Pittsburgh Pirates, veteran baseball writer Bruce Markusen tells the story of one of the most likable and significant teams in the history of professional sports....

New Mexico's Spanish legacy has informed the cultural traditions of one of the last states to join the union for more than four hundred years, or before the alluring capital of Santa Fe was founded in 1610.

All They Will Call You is the harrowing account of "the worst airplane disaster in California's history", which claimed the lives of 32 passengers, including 28 Mexican citizens - farmworkers who were being deported by the US government....

Claudia Garcia crossed the border because her toddler could not hear. Leaving behind everything she knew in Mexico, Claudia recounts the terror of migrating alone with her toddler and the incredible challenges she faced advocating for her daughter’s health in the United States....

The Turkish Lover, the third installment of Puerto Rican writer Esmeralda Santiago’s memoirs, is the story of her love affair with Ulvi Dogan, a Turkish man 17 years older than her....

Native Country of the Heart is the writer and activist Cherrie Moraga's love letter to her "unlettered" mother. It begins with her mother, Elvira Isabel Moraga, who as a child, along with her siblings, was hired out by her own father to pick cotton in California's Imperial Valley....

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....