In this edition of the Latino Book Club, we have Hijas Americanas by Rosie Molinary. Read on. CONTINUE READING
Soul Twins: A Latino Journey from the Edge to Self-Redemption is the memoir of video artist Oscar Vega Romero, a man who left Mexico in search of the American dream, who lived to tell it, in this poetic, prosey autobiography.
Our Lives are the Rivers by Jaime Manrique, gives due credit to Manuela Saenz, you know one of those women in history who did all the brain work, but had to give some men all the credit, because of the gender prejudice of the time.
The man in question is South American liberator Simón Bolívar, whom all of you are all too familiar with. But this is Manuela’s story, darn it, and Manrique tells it with a lot of grace, covering Manuela’s early tempestuous years as a seductress of army bigwigs to her final days as a buried corpse in Piata, Peru.
Look out for the Spanish edition of this book as well, called Nuestras Vidas Son los Rios and also published by Harper Collins.
We’re not ones to give face time to gangsters around here, but Sonia Rodriguez’s book Lady Q: The Rise and Fall of a Latin Queen really deserves some, if only it will deter many from taking a similar path.
The first time Sonia’s life began to take a turn for the worst, was when she revealed to her mother that her uncle had molested her. Instead of comforting her daughter, what does mother do? Beat the victim! So from there, Sonia finds solace in the Latin Kings and Queens, and becomes part of their violent world, and survives everything from teenage pregnancy to being shot by a fellow gangmember.
Lady Q: The Rise and Fall of a Latin Queen is a bumpy ride, and hopefully it teaches everyone who’s contemplating that path, that this is not the way to get respect or get love.
Dominican identity can be complicated as it is, but when juxtaposed within a hot immigrant melting pot like the city of New York, the plot thickens.
Jesse Hoffnung-Garskof a professor of Latin studies at the University of Michigan lays it out like it is, in this book that purports to explain social dynamics during one of the biggest waves of Dominican migration in the early part of the 20th Century.
If you’re interested in assimilation and cultural issues that come with migration, then you shouldn’t miss this well-researched, highly insightful book.
