A people without the knowledge of their past history, origin and culture is like a tree without roots. –Marcus Garvey
We’re not taught anything that we contributed to this country and we’ve been around for 500 years. – John Leguizamo
I get my
energy and strength from the spirit and words of my ancestors, from my mother’s
spirit that shines so bright, and from the unconditional love and support of my
father and family. –Yvette Modestin
My great
strength is knowing who I am and where I come from, my island. –Oscar de la
Renta
Celebrating Latinx Heritage Month by looking at some books on Latinx history in the U.S. In 2014, for the first time in history the majority of students were non-white. Finally, some educators were able to start teaching history that included the contributions of marginalized peoples. It’s a start. It’s a wave. A storm is coming, and we are the storm.
AN AFRICAN AMERICAN AND LATINX HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES
by Paul Ortiz (Beacon
Press)
Incisive and timely, this bottom-up history, told from the interconnected vantage points of Latinx and African Americans, reveals the radically different ways that people of the diaspora have addressed issues still plaguing the United States today, and it offers a way forward in the continued struggle for universal civil rights.
BIO: Paul Ortiz is a professor of history and the director of the
Samuel Proctor Oral History Program at the University of Florida. He is the
author of Emancipation Betrayed: The Hidden History of Black Organizing and White
Violence from Reconstruction to the Bloody Election of 1920 and coeditor
of the oral history Remembering Jim Crow: African Americans Tell About Life in the Segregated
South. He lives in Gainesville, Florida.
LATINX: THE NEW FORCE IN AMERICAN POLITICS AND CULTURE
by Ed Morales (Verso)
In this groundbreaking discussion, Ed
Morales explains how Latinx political identities are tied to a long Latin
American history of mestizaje—“mixedness” or “hybridity”—and that this border
thinking is both a key to understanding bilingual, bicultural Latin cultures
and politics and a challenge to America’s infamously black–white racial regime.
This searching and long-overdue exploration of the meaning of race in American
life reimagines Cornel West’s bestselling Race Matters with a unique Latinx inflection.
THE STORY OF LATINOS AND EDUCATION IN AMERICAN HISTORY
by Abdin Noboa-Rios (International Academic Publishers)
To understand the history of Latinos in
particular, Dr. Noboa-Rios goes back in time to recreate the story.
In this book, he relates the dark legacy before and after Plessy, as well as the
post-Brown challenges that linger. For a better and more balanced future
for the nation, America’s challenge is to ensure that Latino students excel.
Understanding how and why this dark history has occurred is imperative to
rectify the situation.
BIO: Abdín Noboa-Ríos, Ph.D., a native of Puerto Rico, is a social scientist and
educator who has worked in the fields of education, mental health, and
organizational development for decades. As a former practitioner and now
researcher from the barrios of Chicago and New York, Dr. Noboa-Ríos has long
observed and confronted status quo. Alarmed by how flawed "reform" in
education is, disquieted by how poorly conceived "policies" have
promoted rather than solved inequity, and concerned about America’s future, he
strongly questions where we are going. In response, he bravely calls for a new
paradigm―a necessary renaissance―to escape the current chaos and move toward
progress.
Happy Latinx Heritage Month