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Always Running: La Vida Loca: Gang Days in L.A.

Luis J. Rodriguez

By age twelve, Luis Rodriguez was a veteran of East L.A. gang warfare. Lured by a seemingly invincible gang culture, he witnessed countless shootings, beatings, and arrests, then watched with increasing fear as drugs, murder, suicide, and senseless acts of street crime claimed friends and family members.
Before long, Rodriguez saw a way out of the barrio through education and the power of words and successfully broke free from years of violence and desperation. Achieving success as an award-winning Chicano poet, he was sure the streets would haunt him no more -- until his son joined a gang. Rodriguez fought for his child by telling his own story in Always Running, a vivid memoir that explores the motivations of gang life and cautions against the death and destruction that inevitably claim its participants. At times heartbreakingly sad and brutal, Always Running is ultimately an uplifting true story, filled with hope, insight, and a hard-learned lesson for the next generation.
The Devil's Highway: A True Story

Luis Alberto Urrea

In this work of grave beauty and searing powerone of the most widely praised pieces of investigative reporting to appear in recent yearswe follow 26 men who in May 2001 attempted to cross the Mexican border into the desert of southern Arizona, through the deadly region known as the Devils Highway, a desert so harsh and desolate that even the Border Patrol is afraid to travel through it, a place that for hundreds of years has stolen mens souls and swallowed their blood. Only 12 of the men made it out.
La frontera / Borderlands

Gloria Anzalda

Experimental, inventive, provocative and above all visionary, Gloria Anzalda's work is widely recognized among scholars of Chicano/Latino, Gay and Lesbian, Women's, Postcolonial, Ethnic and Cultural Studies as a foundational elaboration of the politics and poetics of cultural hybridity. Both Borderlands/La Frontera and Making Face/Making Soul: Haciendo Caras are all about understanding the complex and competing social, political and cultural forces that shape-sometimes quite brutally-the experiences of women of color in the U.S., and they are all about taking that understanding and mobilizing it toward creative and revisionary efforts for making social change.

"One of the 100 Best Books of the Twentieth Century"-Hungry Mind Review (Spring 1999)

"Anzalda's voyage of discovery, focused on the border and the new mestiza, is a preparation for the future. The border is a bundle of contradictions and ambiguities... This hybrid crossroads is just the right kind of training ground. It is fertile area for mutations and transformations. In Borderlands/ La Frontera, Gloria Anzalda is our guide with an all-encompassing vision to charge the border with meaning."-The Americas Review

"[She] explores in prose and poetry the murky, precarious existence of those living on the frontier between cultures and languages. . . .she meditates on the conditions of Chicanos in Anglo culture, women in Hispanic culture, and lesbians in the straight world. ...a powerful document."-Library Journal

A "Best of 1987" Library Journal selection.

"Anzalda's vision encompasses spiritual and experiential aspects of female power, as well as the day-to-day courage and struggle that has characterized Chicano survival."-The San Francisco Chronicle
Crazy Loco Love

Victor Villasenor

From one of America's most beloved writers comes this compelling memoir of his adolescent search for meaning and identity.
When Victor VillaseÃ±or turned sixteen, his father's gift of a brand-new, turquoise pick-up truck was accompanied by another gift: words of wisdom that would guide him on his path to manhood. "You are a man now, he said, and to be an hombre, a man must not only know right from wrong, he must also know who he is and who he isn't." In the weeks to come, however, Victor disregards his father's advice. Swayed by his friends ridicule, he has his new truck painted white to cover the vibrant turquoise, once his favorite color. Soon, he realizes his mistake. "I'd done exactly what my dad had told me not to. I'd listened to other people's opinions instead of listening to what I'd felt inside."
So begins this poignant and moving account of VillaseÃ±or's coming of age. Growing up on his parents ranch in North San Diego County, Victor VillaseÃ±or's teenage years were marked by a painful quest to find a place for himself in a world he didn't fit into. During his search, Victor wrangles with the usual questions of adolescence: Is it normal to think about sex all the time? Do good girls like sex? Is sex before marriage a sin?
But Victor struggles with more than just his burgeoning sexual awareness. The son of a self-made, successful man, he is different from his peers because of his Mexican heritage, and he experiences both subtle and outright discrimination because of this. Raised in a tight-knit, Catholic family, he questions the tenets of his faith and the restrictions it places on his own developing spirituality and sexuality.
After high school, Victor's quest for who he is and who he isn't takes him to Mexico, where he is shocked to learn that Mexicans aside from his father are successful. They are architects, professors, and artists. Most importantly, he meets an older woman who cultivates in him a deeper understanding of his own intellectual capacity and helps him see the world and his place in it in a whole new way. This experience allows him to appreciate his own potential and realize his dreams of making a difference in the world through writing.
A powerful portrait of a young boy on the path to manhood in the shadow of his influential father, Crazy Loco Love adds a new chapter to the grand tradition of coming-of-age books. Destined to become a classic, this new installment in VillaseÃ±or's body of work confirms his place as a leading American writer. Crazy Loco Love will enthrall his many fans and surely win him new ones.
Clemente: The Passion and Grace of Baseball's Last Hero

David Maraniss

On New Year's Eve 1972, following eighteen magnificent seasons in the major leagues, Roberto Clemente died a hero's death, killed in a plane crash as he attempted to deliver food and medical supplies to Nicaragua after a devastating earthquake. David Maraniss now brings the great baseball player brilliantly back to life in Clemente: The Passion and Grace of Baseball's Last Hero, a book destined to become a modern classic. Much like his acclaimed biography of Vince Lombardi, When Pride Still Mattered, Maraniss uses his narrative sweep and meticulous detail to capture the myth and a real man.
Anyone who saw Clemente, as he played with a beautiful fury, will never forget him. He was a work of art in a game too often defined by statistics. During his career with the Pittsburgh Pirates, he won four batting titles and led his team to championships in 1960 and 1971, getting a hit in all fourteen World Series games in which he played. His career ended with three-thousand hits, the magical three-thousandth coming in his final at-bat, and he and the immortal Lou Gehrig are the only players to have the five-year waiting period waived so they could be enshrined in the Hall of Fame immediately after their deaths.
There is delightful baseball here, including thrilling accounts of the two World Series victories of Clemente's underdog Pittsburgh Pirates, but this is far more than just another baseball book. Roberto Clemente was that rare athlete who rose above sports to become a symbol of larger themes. Born near the canebrakes of rural Carolina, Puerto Rico, on August 18, 1934, at a time when there were no blacks or Puerto Ricans playing organized ball in the United States, Clemente went on to become the greatest Latino player in the major leagues. He was, in a sense, the Jackie Robinson of the Spanish-speaking world, a ballplayer of determination, grace, and dignity who paved the way and set the highest standard for waves of Latino players who followed in later generations and who now dominate the game.
The Clemente that Maraniss evokes was an idiosyncratic character who, unlike so many modern athletes, insisted that his responsibilities extended beyond the playing field. In his final years, his motto was that if you have a chance to help others and fail to do so, you are wasting your time on this earth. Here, in the final chapters, after capturing Clemente's life and times, Maraniss retraces his final days, from the earthquake to the accident, using newly uncovered documents to reveal the corruption and negligence that led the unwitting hero on a mission of mercy toward his untimely death as an uninspected, overloaded plane plunged into the sea.
Ask a Mexican

Gustavo Arellano

DEAR MEXICAN:
WHAT IS ¡ASK A MEXICAN! ?
Questions and answers about our spiciest Americans. I explore the clichés of lowriders, busboys, and housekeepers; drunks and scoundrels; heroes and celebrities; and most important, millions upon millions of law-abiding, patriotic American citizens and their illegal-immigrant cousins who represent some $600 billion in economic power.
WHY SHOULD I READ ¡ASK A MEXICAN! ?
At 37 million strong (or 13 percent of the U.S. population), Latinos have become America's largest minority -- and beaners make up some two-thirds of that number. I confront the bogeymen of racism, xenophobia, and ignorance prompted by such demographic changes through answering questions put to me by readers of my ¡Ask a Mexican! column in California's OC Weekly. I challenge you to find a more entertaining way to immerse yourself in Mexican culture that doesn't involve a taco-and-enchilada combo.
OKAY, WHY DO MEXICANS PARK THEIR CARS ON THE FRONT LAWN?
Where do you want us to park them? The garage we rent out to a family of five? The backyard where we put up our recently immigrated cousins in tool-shack-cum-homes? The street with the red curbs recently approved by city planners? The driveway covered with construction materials for the latest expansion of la casa? The nearby school parking lot frequented by cholos on the prowl for a new radio? The lawn is the only spot Mexicans can park their cars without fear of break-ins, drunken crashes, or an unfortunate keying. Besides, what do you think protects us from drive-bys? The cops?
Lady Q: The Rise and Fall of a Latin Queen

Reymundo Sanchez, Sonia Rodriguez

This is a raw and powerful memoir not only of one woman’s struggle to survive the streets but also of her ascent to the top ranks of the new mafia, where the only people more dangerous than rival gangs were members of her own. At age five Sonia Rodriguez’s stepfather began to abuse her; at 10 she was molested by her uncle and beaten by her mother when she told on him; and by 13 her home had become a hangout for the Latin Kings and Queens who were friends with her older sister. Threatened by rival gang members at school, Sonia turned away from her education and extracurricular activities in favor of a world of drugs and violence. The Latin Kings, one of the largest and most notorious street gangs in America, became her refuge, but its violence cost her friends, freedom, self-respect, and nearly her life. As a Latin Queen, she experienced the exhilarating highs and unbelievable lows of gang life. From being shot at by her own gang and kicked out at age 18 with an infant daughter to rejoining the gang and distinguishing herself as a leader, her legacy as Lady Q was cemented both for her willingness to commit violence and for her role as a drug mule. For the first time, a woman’s perspective on gang life is presented.
Orange County: A Personal History

Gustavo Arellano

The story began in 1918, when Gustavo Arellano's great-grandfather and grandfather arrived in the United States, only to be met with flying potatoes. They ran, and hid, and then went to work in Orange County's citrus groves, where, eventually, thousands of fellow Mexican villagers joined them. Gustavo was born sixty years later, the son of a tomato canner who dropped out of school in the ninth grade and an illegal immigrant who snuck into this country in the trunk of a Chevy. Meanwhile, Orange County changed radically, from a bucolic paradise of orange groves to the land where good Republicans go to die, American Christianity blossoms, and way too many bad television shows are green-lit.
Part personal narrative, part cultural history, Orange County is the outrageous and true story of the man behind the wildly popular and controversial column ¡Ask a Mexican! and the locale that spawned him. It is a tale of growing up in an immigrant enclave in a crime-ridden neighborhood, but also in a promised land, a place that has nourished America's soul and Gustavo's family, both in this country and back in Mexico, for a century.
Nationally bestselling author, syndicated columnist, and the spiciest voice of the Mexican-American community, Gustavo Arellano delivers the hilarious and poignant follow-up to ¡Ask a Mexican!, his critically acclaimed debut. Orange County not only weaves Gustavo's family story with the history of Orange County and the modern Mexican-immigrant experience but also offers sharp, caliente insights into a wide range of political, cultural, and social issues.
Family Pictures/Cuadros De Familia

Carmen Lomas Garza

The day-to-day experiences of a young girl in a traditional Hispanic community form the basis of this lovingly told, beautifully illustrated book. Garza's memories of childhood are "an inspired celebration of American cultural diversity."--School Library Journal. ALA Notable Book; Texas Bluebonnet Award; Parents' Choice Read to Achieve Section. Full color.
Harvest of Empire: A History of Latinos in America

Juan Gonzalez
The Mexican Mafia

Tony Rafael

It has been called the most dangerous gang in American history. In Los Angeles alone it is responsible for over 100 homicides per year. Although it has fewer than 300 members, it controls a 40,000-strong street army that is eager to advance its agenda. It waves the flag of the Black Hand and its business is murder. Although known on the streets for over fifty years, the Mexican Mafia has flown under the radar of public awareness and has flourished beneath a deep cover of secrecy. Members are forbidden even to acknowledge its existence.
Once Upon a Quinceanera: Coming of Age in the USA

Julia Alvarez

The bestselling author of How the García Girls Lost Their Accents explores the phenomenon of the Latina “sweet fifteen” celebration

The quinceañera, the fifteenth birthday celebration for a Latina girl, is quickly becoming an American event. This legendary party is a sight to behold: lavish ball gowns, extravagant catered meals, DJs, limousines, and multi-tiered cakes. The must haves for a “quince” are becoming as numerous and costly as a prom or wedding. And yet, this elaborate ritual also hearkens back to traditions from native countries and communities, offering young Latinas a chance to connect with their heritage.

In Once Upon a Quinceañera, Julia Alvarez explores this celebration that brings a Latina girl into womanhood. She attends the quince of a young woman named “Monica” who lives in Queens, and witnesses the commotion, confusion, and potential for disaster that comes with planning this important event. Alvarez also weaves in interviews with other quince girls, her own memories of coming of age as an immigrant, and the history of the custom itself—how it originated and what has changed as Latinas become accustomed to a supersize American culture. Once Upon a Quinceañera is an enlightening, accessible, and entertaining portrait of contemporary Latino culture as well as a critical look at the rituals of coming of age and the economic and social consequences of the quince parties. Julia Alvarez’s dedicated fans will be eager to hear her thoughts on this topic. It is a great book for anyone interested in American youth today—parents, teachers, and teenagers themselves.
The Latino Threat: Constructing Immigrants, Citizens, and the Nation

Leo R. Chavez

From volunteers ready to patrol the U.S.-Mexico border to the hundreds of thousands of men, women, and children who have marched in support of immigrant rights, the United States has witnessed a surge of involvement in immigration activism. In The Latino Threat, Leo R. Chavez critically investigates the media stories about and recent experiences of immigrants to show how prejudices and stereotypes have been used to malign an entire immigrant population—and to define what it means to be an American.

Pundits—and the media at large—nurture and perpetuate the notion that Latinos, particularly Mexicans, are an invading force bent on reconquering land once considered their own. Through a perceived refusal to learn English and an "out of control" birthrate, many say that Latinos are destroying the American way of life. But Chavez questions these assumptions and offers facts to counter the myth that Latinos are a threat to the security and prosperity of our nation.

His breakdown of the "Latino threat" contests this myth's basic tenets, challenging such well-known authors as Samuel Huntington, Pat Buchanan, and Peter Brimelow. Chavez concludes that citizenship is not just about legal definitions, but about participation in society. Deeply resonant in today's atmosphere of exclusion, Chavez's insights offer an alternative and optimistic view of the vitality and future of our country.
When I Was Puerto Rican

Esmeralda Santiago

Selling over 16,000 copies in hardcover, this triumphant coming-of-age memoir is now available in paperback editions in both English and Spanish. In the tradition of Black Ice, Santiago writes lyrically of her childhood on her native island and of her bewildering years of transition in New York City.
Latino Spin: Public Image and the Whitewashing of Race

Arlene Davila

”The finest, fiercest and most piercing of our public intellectuals . . . Dávila is a force of nature. In Latino Spin Dávila elegantly unravels the media driven sleight-of-hand that simultaneously celebrates an uber-American (and almost entirely manufactured) Latino middle class while demonizing recent Latino immigrants and the poor folks who resemble them. On a line by line, idea by idea basis Dávila is simply without peer, her scholarship essential to our understanding of our New America.”
—Junot Díaz, author of The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao and Drown
”Arlene Dávila depicts the frenzied efforts of post-industrial America to corral more than 40 million diverse Latinos into a single homogenized market. Whether it’s peddling consumer goods, monetizing art and culture, engineering barrio land development, or shaping a new political voting bloc, Latino Spin brilliantly dissects Hispanic-American reality in the 21st century.”
—Juan Gonzalez, New York Daily News columnist and author of Harvest of Empire: A History of Latinos in America
”A wonderfully written book that cuts through the ‘spin’ often used to typecast the U.S.’s largest minority group. Offering a fresh and insightful take on race in America, Arlene Dávila addresses popular images of Latinos and shows us the limitations of both negative portrayals and the attempts to respond to them. In this tour de force, Dávila goes beyond simply describing bias to offer a transcendent vision of Latinos that challenges racism and captures the complexity of this diverse community.”
—Mark Sawyer, author of Racial Politics in Post Revolutionary Cuba
Illegal immigrant, tax-burden, job stealer. Patriot, family oriented, hard worker, model consumer. Ever since Latinos became the largest minority in the U.S. they have been caught between these wildly contrasting characterizations leaving us to wonder: Are Latinos friend or foe?
Latino Spin cuts through the spin about Latinos’ supposed values, political attitudes, and impact on U.S. national identity to ask what these caricatures suggest about Latinos’ shifting place in the popular and political imaginary. Noted scholar Arlene Dávila demonstrates that there is a growing consensus being voiced by pundits, advocates, and scholars to demonstrate that Latinos are not a social liability, that they are moving up and contributing, and that, in fact, they are more American than “the Americans.” But what is at stake in such a sanitized and marketable representation of Latinidad? Dávila follows the spin through the realm of politics, think tanks, Latino museums, and urban planning to uncover whether they effectively challenge the growing fear over Latinos’ supposedly dreadful effect on the “integrity” of U.S. national identity. What may be some of the intended or unintended consequences of these more marketable representations in regards to current debates over immigration?
With particular attention to what these representations reveal about the place and role of Latinos in the contemporary politics of race, Latino Spin highlights the realities they skew and the polarization they effect between Latinos and other minorities, and among Latinos themselves along the lines of citizenship and class. Finally, by considering Latinos in all their diversity, including their increasing financial and geographic disparities, Dávila can present alternative and more empowering representations of Latinidad to help attain true political equity and intraracial coalitions.
Under the Feet of Jesus

Helena Maria Viramontes

As a second-class Mexican-American citizen laboring under dangerous conditions in America's fields, Estrella learns the values of life and discovers ways to defy repression and the hopelessness of her situation. Reprint. Tour.
Manifest Destinies: The Making of the Mexican American Race

Laura Gomez

View the Table of Contents
Read the Introduction
We Know We’re Not White: Author Interview on San Diego Weekly Reader
Gómez sets out to write an antidote to historical amnesia about the key nineteenth-century events that produced the first Mexican Americans. A law professor at the University of New Mexico, Gómez takes a three-pronged approach: she looks at Chicano history via sociology, history, and law, using New Mexico as a case study. At the heart of the book is the idea that Manifest Destiny was not, according to Gómez, a neutral political theory. Rather, it was a potent ideology that endowed white Americans with a sense of entitlement to the land and racial superiority over its inhabitants.
La Bloga
Shows the impacts (then, as now) of the dominant white racist frame coming in from outside what was once northern Mexico.Racism Review
"[A]n interesting and comprehensive look at what New Mexicans really lost after being conquered by the United States."
—The Albuquerque Journal
Gómezs insights into the struggles at play in the nineteenth-century Southwest are extremely relevant for today—a time in which identity politics are still predominant in discussions about culture. . . . With Chicanos making up the youngest racial group in America (34 percent are under the age of 18), the complicated relationship between the U.S. and its Mexican citizens is clearly something that is going to be on the table for a long time to come. Manifest Destinies presents a portrait of the forces that were present when this group was still in its infancy.
Pop Matters
Are Mexican Americans a racial or ethnic group? This is the important question Manifest Destinies asks and answers. . . . Marvelous, dense, and richly researched.
—Ramon A. Gutierrez, University of Chicago
Highlights the largely neglected history of multiracial populations that, throughout our nations history, have come together along the frontier. With her analysis of racial ideologies . . . Gómez promises to make a valuable contribution to this literature.
—Rachel Moran, author of Interracial Intimacy: The Regulation of Race and Romance
Anyone interested in understanding the historical experience of the largest ethnic group in the country will find Manifest Destinies both timely and of great interest. . . . Simply put, her work is first rate in every way.
—Tomás Almaguer, author of Racial Fault Lines: The Historical Origins of White Supremacy in California
In both the historic record and the popular imagination, the story of nineteenth-century westward expansion in America has been characterized by notions of annexation rather than colonialism, of opening rather than conquering, and of settling unpopulated lands rather than displacing existing populations.

Using the territory that is now New Mexico as a case study, Manifest Destinies traces the origins of Mexican Americans as a racial group in the United States, paying particular attention to shifting meanings of race and law in the nineteenth century.
Laura E. Gómez explores the central paradox of Mexican American racial status as entailing the law's designation of Mexican Americans as "white" and their simultaneous social position as non-white in American society. She tells a neglected story of conflict, conquest, cooperation, and competition among Mexicans, Indians, and Euro-Americans, the regions three main populations who were the key architects and victims of the laws that dictated what ones race was and how people would be treated by the law according to ones race.
Gómezs pathbreaking work—spanning the disciplines of law, history, and sociology—reveals how the construction of Mexicans as an American racial group proved central to the larger process of restructuring the American racial order from the Mexican War (1846–48) to the early twentieth century. The emphasis on white-over-black relations during this period has obscured the significant role played by the doctrine of Manifest Destiny and the colonization of northern Mexico in the racial subordination of black Americans.
Mongrels, Bastards, Orphans, and Vagabonds: Mexican Immigration and the Future of Race in America (Vintage)

Gregory Rodriguez

An unprecedented account of the long-term cultural and political influences that Mexican-Americans will have on the collective character of our nation.

In considering the largest immigrant group in American history, Gregory Rodriguez examines the complexities of its heritage and of the racial and cultural synthesis--mestizaje--that has defined the Mexican people since the Spanish conquest in the sixteenth century. He persuasively argues that the rapidly expanding Mexican American integration into the mainstream is changing not only how Americans think about race but also how we envision our nation. Brilliantly reasoned, highly thought provoking, and as historically sound as it is anecdotally rich, Mongrels, Bastards, Orphans, and Vagabonds is a major contribution to the discussion of the cultural and political future of the United States.
The Day It Snowed Tortillas / El Dia Que Nevaron Tortillas, Folktales told in Spanish and English

Joe Hayes

Kids of all ages are always asking Joe Hayes, "How can it snow tortillas?" Well, now they'll know where to find the answer-at long last, Joe's signature book The Day It Snowed Tortillas is appearing in this new bilingual edition. Bloomsbury Review listed the original English-only edition as one of their fifteen all-time favorite children's books. Our bilingual edition has all the original stories as they have evolved in the last twenty years of Joe's storytelling. It also has new illustrations by award-winning artist Antonio Castro. Storytellers have been telling these stories in the villages of New Mexico since the Spanish first came to the New World over four hundred years ago, but Joe always adds his own nuances for modern audiences. The tales are full of magic and fun. In the title story, for instance, a very clever woman saves her silly husband from a band of robbers. She makes the old man believe it snowed tortillas during the night! In another story, a young boy gladly gives up all of his wages for good advice. His parents think he is a fool, but the good advice leads to wealth and a royal marriage. The enchantment continues in story after story-a clever thief tricks a king for his kingdom and a prince finds his beloved in a house full of wicked step-sisters. And of course, we listen again to the ancient tale of the weeping woman, La Llorona, who still searches for her drowned children along the riverbanks.
Joe Hayes is one of America's premier storytellers. He is especially recognized for his bilingual telling of stories from the Hispanic culture of northern New Mexico. Joe lives in Santa Fe, New Mexico and travels extensively throughout the United States, visiting schools and storytelling festivals.
From Rage to Hope: Strategies for Reclaiming Black & Hispanic Students

Crystal Kuykendall

This second edition, with a new foreword by Asa G. Hilliard III, is a compelling and informative examination of the academic underachievement, apathy, and rage among America s Black and Hispanic youth.