THE LATINA BOOK CLUB

Cuba.  The name alone conjures up images of beautiful women, dashing men, smoldering cigars and savory dishes.   All true, and luckily Cuba is no longer forbidden territory.  More than 10 major airlines have direct flights to Cuba,  and there is even a brand new US-owned hotel on the island.  Havana is once again open for business. To Celebrate Cuba, The Latina Book Club has put together some fun facts.  How many do you know?### FUN FACTS ABOUT CUBA Cuba is 90 miles from Miami. It’s the largest island in the Caribbean. Fidel Castro took over the country in 1959. Baseball is the most popular sport in Cuba and yet by National Decree 83a, passed in 1962, professional sports are illegal. As of 2013, Cuba has nine sites on the UNESCO World Heritage List. The Manjuari fish can only be found in Cuba. Ernest Hemingway wrote THE OLD MAN & THE SEA and FOR WHOM THE BELL TOLLS while living in Cuba. There is a John Le...

   The Latina Book Club is Celebrating Cuba this week. Check out these books from Cuban American writers and / or with Cuban American protagonists.  There is a book for everyone from fiction to biographies to children’s books to romance to young adult. Note this list is by no means complete, but it will get you started.  Happy Reading! BOOKS BY CUBAN AMERICAN WRITERS 1.     A CUP OF WATER UNDER MY BED by Daisy Hernández (Beacon Press) 2.      BURN BABY BURN by Meg Medina (Candlewick) 3.     CUBA IN SPLINTERS: 11 STORIES FROM A NEW CUBA edited by Orlando Luis Pardo Lazo (OR Books) 4.     CUBAN-AMERICAN, DANCING ON THE HYPHEN by Amarilys Gacio Rassler (SPS Publications) 5.     DALIA’S WONDROUS HAIR by Laura Lacámara (Piňata Books/ Arte Publico Press) 6.     EVERYONE LEAVES by Wendy Guerra (Amazon Crossing) 7.     HOW TO LEAV...

        The Latina Book Club congratulates Raul Ramos y Sanchez on his new book, THE SKINNY YEARS.  We also thank him for the free e-book with many recipes from the book.  Do let us know your favorite.   In celebration of Raul's new book, we are Celebrating Cuba all week long. Happy Cooking and Happy Reading! Hard times come to everybody, Victor. Life is what you make of it,  not what happens to you…Don’t let the comemierdas change you.  – Abuela Perez     Beck & Branch Publishers Colorful. Emotional. Outstanding. THE SKINNY YEARS can take its place proudly alongside other notable coming-of-age tales like BLESS ME, ULTIMA by Rudolfo Anaya; WHEN I WAS PUERTO RICAN by Esmeralda Santiago; and ARISTOTLE AND DANTE DISCOVER THE SECRETS OF THE UNIVERSE by Benjamin Alire Sáenz. THE SKINNY YEARS deals with lots of complex issues like identity, loss, belonging and connection. Through our tee...

   The Latina Book Club congratulates Sabrina on the October 15 release of her book, INK. It’s a scary book because this  could happen. Think Holocaust. Fans of AMERICA LIBRE will enjoy this apocalyptic book. INK by Sabrina Vourvoulias Crossed Genres Available in paper and e-book What happens when rhetoric about immigrants escalates to an institutionalized population control system? The near-future, dark speculative novel INK opens as a biometric tattoo is approved for use to mark temporary workers, permanent residents and citizens with recent immigration history – collectively known as inks. Set in a fictional city and small, rural town in the U.S. during a 10-year span, the novel is told in four voices: a journalist; an ink who works in a local population control office; an artist strongly tied to a specific piece of land; and a teenager whose mother runs an inkatorium (a sanitarium-internment center opened in response to public health concerns ab...

  The month-long celebration of Hispanic Heritage Month is officially over...or is it? We continue to be Latino.  It's not something that we can turn off.  And we wouldn't want to if we could.  So even though the holiday is over, the Celebration Continues. As Latinos, let's continue to honor our Parents, our roots, our culture, our music, our language, all our peoples.  And, let's Pay Tribute to Latinos everywhere.  Read Latino books; watch Latino movies; patronize Latino businesses; play your favorite Latino artists. The Latina Book Club also wishes to thank its Guest Bloggers this month; see list below.  If you missed their post, just click on their names.   GUEST BLOGGERS Marcela Landres , Editor Extraordinaire Raul Ramos y Sanchez , author of AMERICA LIBRE Monique Frausto of Blogs by Latinas Mike Padilla , author of THE GIRLS FROM THE REVOLUTIONARY CANTINA Vanessa Libertad Garcia , author of THE VOTING BO...

   By Raul Ramos y Sanchez The Latina Book Club welcomes the author of AMERICA LIBRE and HOUSE DIVIDED to its Hispanic Heritage Month Celebration. Hispanic Heritage Month is a much-deserved commemoration of the nation’s fastest-growing ethnic group. But it’s more than opportunity to celebrate. It’s also an opportunity to educate, a chance to dispel the many widespread myths about Latinos. Ironically, many of these misconceptions are often perpetuated by other Latinos. The most common source is the “Hispanic marketing expert” who conjures imaginary characteristics about all Latinos to assert their expertise. Here are just a few actual examples: “Hispanics tend to place less importance on time as a concept. This can be frustrating to many non-Hispanics who are used to a fast moving world and are constantly rushing and planning for the future.” “Discussions with Hispanics tend to be more emotional and less rational. Understanding this will allow you to build powerfu...

by Maria C. Ferrer Founder, The Latina Book Club Today begins Hispanic Heritage Month . For one month out of the year, the US celebrates Hispanics, aka Latinos. This year the celebration seems ironic given the current tensions over the immigration bills being considered and laws enacted, but let’s not talk politics or we’ll be foaming at the mouth. Instead, let’s celebrate that Hispanics are an integral part of this great nation of ours. Let’s celebrate Hispanic leaders in our community, in our government, in our schools, in our lives.  For this one month, let’s celebrate what makes Hispanics unique and beautiful – our culture, our music, our letters, our passions, our people. I’m starting my month-long—and life-long—celebration with Familia . My family is the root of my Hispanidad. It is with them and from them that I get my pride in my heritage.  And, so I celebrate that I am Hispanic. I celebrate that I am Puerto Rican. I celebrate that I love my island, Borin...

      HOUSE DIVIDED By Raul Ramos y Sanchez Grand Central Publishing Release date January 28, 2011 DOUBLE GIVEAWAY!! Details and links at bottom. “Honor doesn’t come cheap.” “Dead from hungry? Dead from bullet?... Dead is dead.” A son may have taken the same path as his father, but he is not following in his footsteps. Powerful. Realistic. Terrifying. Thrilling. Spellbinding. Raul Ramos y Sanchez must be congratulated on writing such a realistic and gripping saga. I could not put either of these books down until I had read the endings. The stories are so real that it feels like I should be able to turn on my TV and watch the updates on CNN or, better yet, on You-Tube. If you’ve read AMERICA LIBRE, you know it was the story of Manolo Suarez, a man struggling to provide and protect his family amid smoldering ethnic tensions that give rise to a Hispanic liberation movement that ignites a new civil war upon American soil. HOUSE DIVIDED, b...

     Last November, we featured author Raul Ramos y Sanchez and his book AMERICA LIBRE . I found the book in turns, passionate, vivid, and terrifying.  It was a totally engrossing and emotional tale about Hispanics in search of justice and a country of their own. Unfortunately, the rebels’ quest leads to the imprisonment of all Latinos in Quarantine Zones. At the end, the battle is lost and the rebels jailed along with all the other Hispanics in the U.S. BUT THE BATTLE CONTINUES…. Manolo Suarez is back and still fighting.  But now, trouble comes from the home front as his teenage son joins the battle but on the side of extremists attacking innocent civilians.  Is this what Manolo fought so hard for -- to lose his son?  Is this the lesson his struggles taught his children?  his people? Here is a sneak peek at the sequel: HOUSE DIVIDED .    HOUSE DIVIDED will be on sale from Grand Central Publishing on Janu...

( Also, Today, Nov 30 --Raul will be discussing the Latino Vote on HITN cable TV. See bottom of this post for more details.) AMERICA LIBRE By Raul Ramos y Sanchez Grand Central Publishing To watch Book Trailer, click here . To read the Book Review, click here . Q:   You started writing AMERICA LIBRE in 2004. Your America has an ex-black president and a lot of civil unrest due to prejudice against Hispanics. That’s about 4 years before Obama was even on the Democratic Ticket’s radar, before the Texas border wall, before the Arizona immigration controversy. Where did you get the idea for the book?            A:   For over 20 years, I’ve made a living in advertising. In that business, it’s important to spot trends. And one of the trends I noticed were early reports from the 2000 about the explosive growth of the Latino population in the United States. As a student of U.S. history, I sensed this might create...

(Part II: Q&A with author Raul Ramos y Sanchez will be posted tomorrow, November 30 .  Join us!) AMERICA LIBRE By Raul Ramos y Sanchez Grand Central Publishing Like the thirteen English colonies huddled along the coast of North America in 1776, the countries of Latin America will one day reach an epiphany of consciousness and unite into a single nation. This is their inevitable destiny. –Jose Antonio Marcha, JUSTICIA Hispanics in America have come to accept the way things are, not because they’re fair or just, but because it’s the way things have been for a very long time . –Josefina Herrera Being Latino was something he’d simply learned to endure with dignity, like a handicap. The revelation shamed him . –Mano Suarez During WWII, the U.S. government imprisoned many Japanese-Americas in concentration-liked camps, even as many of them fought in the war. The government did it in the name of homeland security. Could it happen again on American soil? Could one group ...