THE LATINA BOOK CLUB

Courage is the price that Life exacts for granting peace.—Amelia Earhart FLYING FREE is Inspiring. Empowering. Rewarding. Cecilia Rodriguez Aragon is the daughter of a Chilean father and a Filipina mother. She grew up a shy, timid child often bullied by her white classmates. The teachers ignored her intelligence and tried to steer her away from science. “Girls can’t do science.” Cecilia showed them. Cecilia may have been painfully shy but she stuck to her guns and earned her PhD in computer science. She worked with astronomers to solve some of the greatest mysteries of the universe; worked with Nobel Prize winners; taught astronauts to fly; worked with NASA designing software for Mars missions; and created musical simulations of the universe with rock stars. Today, she’s semi-retired from flying but holds her dream job – Professor in the College of Engineering at the University of Washington. It only took her six years to overcome her shyness. FLYING FREE recalls those years. It all ...

The Latina Book Club wishes everyone a Happy & Healthy New Year.  We wanted to start 2021 with a powerful and inspirational book,  and are well pleased with our find.  I AM THESE TRUTHS by Sunny Hostin is a timely, poignant and moving memoir. From New York, to Washington, and back again, our heroine has overcome poverty, racism and sexism through hard work, education and tremendous perseverance. Sunny’s story is a triumph and an inspiration to women everywhere. I AM THESE TRUTHS A Memoir of Identity, Justice, and  Living Between Worlds by Sunny Hostin HarperOne What are you? A simple and difficult question for a Latina woman straddling two cultures. Sunny Hostin has lived between two worlds and has learned to “bridge them together to fight for what’s right.” Asunción Cummings Hostin aka Sunny Hostin grew up half Puerto Rican and half African-American raised by teenage parents in the South Bronx. Escaping poverty and the turbulence of her early life thro...

Atria Books Silence has a price…. I’ve spent decades of my life practicing my own “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” in terms of my skin color and facial features. Form the over-the-shoulder looks at school to the thousands of products I bought to straighten my hair to try to look more like other girls. Although I never wanted to think of myself as a victim of discrimination, rejection grazed me like bullets, no matter what kind of body armor I wore to try and ignore the problem. – Ilia Calderón This is a book by an exceptional woman. She does it all. There are very few stories of triumph that even touch what Ilia has achieved as a mother and a journalist. Give her any challenge, and she’ll overcome it. And I have no idea how she does it all with a smile on her face, as if it  were nothing. I’m so lucky to work with her and be a witness to the way this woman is changing the world.  -- Jorge Ramos, lead anchor of Noticiero Univision Inspiring. Timely. Candid. Fearle...

Al jibaro nunca se le quita la mancha de platano. A jibaro can never wash away the stain of the plantain .                         -Esmeralda Santiago Vintage, 1990 If you are Puerto Rican, you have probably heard of Esmeralda Santiago.  She is the author that gave Puerto Ricans a face and a voice.  She is every Boricua – torn between two cultures, two languages, two identities.  Which is the real Esmeralda? The answer is another question – why can’t she be both? Esmeralda’s WHEN I WAS PUERTO RICAN is the first of three memoirs that take readers from the pueblitos of the small Caribbean island to the big city in Manhattan.  Esme’s new life is full of challenges, discoveries and dualities.  In fact, the original version of the novel had two parts  –  Puerto Rico and America.  Esmeralda is both Puerto Rican ...

Real revolution in language is taking the stranger’s tongue and using it better than he.— Richard Rodriguez HUNGER OF MEMORY The Education of Richard Rodriguez By Richard Rodriguez Bantam, 1982 Memoir Astounding. Superb. A Triumph. The difficult journey of an immigrant child struggling to navigate two cultures, two languages, two worlds is the same now as it was in the 1960’s and 1970's.   The struggle to learn a new language, to be accepted, to belong to the new world takes a toll on the child and can often threaten the bonds of family and culture.   Such is Richard’s story. 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.   Here is the poignant journey of a “minority student” who pays the cost of his social assimilation and...

How easy it is, how easy, for the brain to trick us into wiping pain away,  in to thinking you’re here at my door, or in the kitchen by my side, sipping at the mug, sighing at the early hour, calling my name, your mouth at my ear. How easy, how easy. --Old Habits Thelma T. Reyna Golden Foothills Press What do you do when your beloved husband of  50 years and 8 months dies undergoing a minor surgery? Poet laureate Thelma T. Reyna turned towards the written word. Thelma lost her beloved husband Victor two years ago. Her grief was unbearable and immeasurable, but life goes on and unfortunately, she had to march with it. “ I wish the wife back then knew clearly what the widow now knows…about impermanence, about ensuring that our loved ones know clearly and unfailingly how much they mean to us, how much they enrich our lives, because we’re telling them regularly, with heart and soul.” Heartfelt. Piercing. Loving. DEAREST...

Arte Publico Press My heart belonged to the South, but somehow  I knew I could not escape the North .--- Gerald Poyo Revealing. Well researched. Engaging. Whether Gerald Poyo is writing about Cubans in exile or the island’s struggle for independence or about his great-great-great grandfather who was a lector for Cuban cigar workers (like in the film Anna in the Tropics ), his writing has always been well-researched and detailed, as is his new book. Poyo turns to family again in A LATINO MEMOIR: EXPLORING IDENTITY, FAMILY AND THE COMMON GOOD.   The author is tracing his family’s roots across five generations and two continents.   The writing is wonderfully descriptive and engaging. It’s interesting to learn about our ancestors, their passions and dreams, and realize that those traits are within us. SUMMARY:    In a bumpy, anxiety-producing plane ride across the Straits of Florida to Cuba in 1979, graduate student Gerald Poyo knew h...

Algonquin Books I wasn’t looking for a specific place, since I didn’t believe there was any place I belonged . –Jaquira Fierce. Eloquent. Harsh. Stark. Empowering.     From Ponce to Miami, Jaquira’s life is not easy.   It’s full of doubt, violence, suicide, mental illness, fear, shame, rage, and finally defiance and confidence. She read books on the download, dreamed of getting out of Miami and traveling the world, dreaming of adventures. Jaquira never dreamt of a specific place, because she never felt that she’d belong. Now, she shares her story, her journey to the woman she has become and celebrates today. SUMMARY:   While growing up in housing projects in Puerto Rico and Miami Beach, Díaz found herself caught between extremes. As her family split apart and her mother battled schizophrenia, she was supported by the love of her friends. As she longed for a family and home, her life was upended by violence. As she celebrated her Puerto Ric...

The Feminist Press at CUNY This debut is so much more than an immigrant’s story. It is an ode to the resilience of the human spirit. A hymn to the power of poems and stories as agents of personal liberation and social change. In any language. Any culture. Anywhere in the world. ¡Brava, Claudia! ¡Otra, otra! Encore!   —Lucha Corpi Breathtaking. Honest. Bilingual. Bicultural. A journey across numerous borders in search of the Promise Land.   Claudia uses all types of forms of writing to tell her story—poetry, prose, English, Spanish.   This is her life, her memories. Some good, a lot bad.   She doesn’t fit in the new land, and after a few years, she doesn’t fit back home in Guatemala either. She is of both lands, but none.   Does that make her more... or less?   Unfortunately , that is the eternal struggle of bicultural children. SUMMARY:   A young Guatemalan immigrant’s adolescence is shaped by her journey to the US as she ...

ABRAMS PRESS Chef Aarón Sánchez’s memoir touched my soul. As a fellow Mexican American, I grew up a lot like Aarón and shared the same kind of traditional Mexican cuisines every night at the dinner table. I have a new respect and understanding for the recipes that were passed along within my family, and I now have a deeper appreciation because I recognize that this is connection to my past that will live on forever.   –Oscar de la Hoya, Boxing Legend Happy 2020!   The Latina Book Club has chosen a savory memoir/ cookbook for its first Book of the Month of this new decade.   WHERE I COME FROM: LIFE LESSONS FROM A LATINO CHEF by Aarón Sánchez is inspiring, passionate and delicious.   Right from the start, readers learn that Aarón equates his love of food with his love for his family and heri tage.   He thanks his mother, who pushed him out of the nest at 16 to go work with a well-known New Orleans chef, for his love of cookin...

    Stories can’t be featured unless they are available to read.   We all need to share our stories…. – Lisa Guerrero, Journalist, Latina, Leader. We can’t believe how quickly this year has gone by.  We were happy to discover new authors and new stories – stories that made us laugh, cry, cringe, scream and fall in love.  We’ve put together an easy reference list of our books of 2017 for readers everywhere. Remember that books make great gifts all year around, and the best way to support an author is by buying their books, reading their stories and telling your friends and their friends and so on. We wish you the very best for the New Year, and we look forward to discovering new stories and new authors.  Happy Reading. Happy 2018! --- mcf BOOKS OF THE YEAR 2017 A Tongue in the Mouth of the Dying by Laurie Ann Guerrero (University of Notre Dame Press) – poetry All that Glitters by Liza Treviño (Koehler Books) ...