THE LATINA BOOK CLUB

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...

We must use our lives to make the world  a  better place to live, not just to acquire things. That is what we are put on the earth for. – Dolores Huerta The Latina Book Club wishes  Dolores Huerta a Happy 90 th  Birthday!   Dolores Huerta is the Voice of the Working Poor. She is a Labor Leader, a Trailblazer, a Visionary.   She worked along with  César Chávez  to form the United Farm Workers of America, all while caring and raising her children.   She was an extraordinary woman, and the recipient of the Presidential Medal of Freedom form Barack Obama in 2012.   The following books help celebrate her life and her accomplishments. Felicidades! DOLORES HUERTA: GET TO KNOW THE VOICE OF MIGRANT WORKERS By Robert Liu-Trujillo Capstone Press Dolores Huerta led farm workers to demand better pay, reasonable hours, and respect on the job. She knew laws needed to be passed to protect the workers and i...

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...

Farrar Straus Giroux, 1984 All lovers of justice are invited to attend a public demonstration of solidarity with the idealists of Canudos and with all rebels the world over,  to be held in the Praça da Liberdade  on the fourth of October at 6 p.m. Called a “modern tragedy on the grand scale,” a “thunderous novel,” a “masterpiece.” THE WAR OF THE END OF THE WORLD is all that and more. Canudos is the Wild West and Neverland all rolled into one. There are no laws, no taxes, no marriage, no worries. Sounds like paradise, but there is always a snake in the grass, and this one is the fictional Brazilian government determined to claim the backlands, crush the outcasts and impose their rule.   Freedom fighters or bandits?   The battle is inevitable, but readers must ask, who truly wins the war? SUMMARY:   Deep within the remote backlands of nineteenth-century Brazil lies Canudos, home to all the damned of the earth: prostitutes, bandits, be...

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 ...

   The Latina Book Club remembers and honors All the fallen Soldiers and Heroes – men and women – who have sacrificed so much for our country’s freedom.   We can never Thank Them enough ! Here are some books that honor our Latino Soldiers.   Enjoy. SOLDIER FOR EQUALITY: JOSE DE LA LUZ SAENZ AND THE GREAT WAR By Duncan Tonatiuh A 2020 Pura Belprè Author Honor Book Abrams Books for Young Readers Josè de la Luz Sáenz believed in fighting for what was right. He fought in WWI and was an invaluable member of the Intelligence Office in Europe. But even in the army, he faced prejudice. When he returned home, he joined other Mexican American Veterans to create the League of Latin American Citizens (LULAC), one of largest and oldest Latinx civil rights organizations. GOOD NIGHT CAPTAIN MAMA / BUENAS NOCHES CAPITAN MAMA By Graciela Tiscareňo-Sato Gracefully Global Group A sweet, reassuring bedtime conversation between a military ...