Exploring Top Books of Shelfari

A critically acclaimed debut collection of ten cynical and sentimental stories captures the bleakness of life, first in the Dominican Republic and then in New Jersey suburbia, for immigrants of color. Reprint. NYT. "

The House on the Lagoon

by Rosario Ferre

A finalist for the 1995 National Book Award, a family saga traces the secrets and conflicts of the dynasty of Isabel Monfort and her husband Quintin Mendizabal, whose fate is intertwined with the evolution of Puerto Rico. Reprint. NYT.

Macho!

by Alfonso Gonza?lez, Victor E. Villasenor

From Victor Villase-or, author of the critically acclaimed bestseller Rain of Gold , comes the stunning story of a young man's coming of age--a novel that captures the cadences and color, passion and pride of the Mexican-American experience. Roberto Garcia was only seventeen. But he already had big dreams of freedom, respect, money, familia. With ambition to burn and a passion to prove his manhood, Roberto took... (more)

Brown: The Last Discovery of America

by Richard Rodriguez

In his dazzling new memoir, Richard Rodriguez reflects on the color brown and the meaning of Hispanics to the life of America today. Rodriguez argues that America has been brown since its inception-since the moment the African and the European met within the Indian eye. But more than simply a book about race, Brown is about America in the broadest sense-a look at what our country is, full of surprising... (more)

Once Upon a Quinceanera: Coming of Age in the USA

Once Upon a Quinceanera: Coming of Age in the USA

by Julia Alvarez

The bestselling author of How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents , Julia Alvarez, examines the parties and preparations of the quincea–era.

How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents (Essential Edition): (Plume Essential Edition)

How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents (Essential Edition): (Plume Essential Edition)

by Julia Alvarez

Eagerly embracing their new American culture in Miami, the four Garcia women iron their hair, smoke cigarettes, date American men, forget their Spanish, and lose their accents all in their journey toward adulthood. Reprint. 25,000 first printing.

Parrot in the Oven: Mi vida

by Victor Martinez

Dad believed people were like money. You could be a thousand-dollar person or a hundred-dollar person'even a ten-, five-, or one-dollar person. Below that, everybody was just nickels and dimes. To my dad, we were pennies. Fourteen-year-old Manny Hernandez wants to be more than just a penny. He wants to be a vato firme, the kind of guy people respect. But that's not easy when your father is abusive, your brother... (more)

El Bronx Remembered

by Nicholasa Mohr

In a city called New York ... In a neighborhood called El Bronx ... The Fernandex children own a very special pet: A white hen named after their favorite Hollywood movie star. A new girl comes to school - a gypsy child who can read palms and foretell the future. A young boy must face the humiliation of wearing his uncle's orange roach-killer shoes to his high school graduation. In the South Bronx - or El... (more)

Puerto Rico Mio

by Jack Delano

Delano, who first visited Puerto Rico in 1941 as a photographer for the Farm Security Administration, returned 40 years later to film again the Puerto Rican landscapes and lives he had come to love. Introduced by four brief essays in both English and Spanish by Delano and educator Arturo Morales Carrion, art historian Alan Fern and anthropologist Sidney W. Mintz, the 175 duotones collected here reflect "the... (more)

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

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

by 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... (more)

Pocho

by Jose Antonio Villarreal

Villarreal illuminates here the world of "pochos," Americans whose parents come to the United States from Mexico. Set in Depression-era California, the novel focuses on Richard, a young pocho who experiences the intense conflict between loyalty to the traditions of his family's past and attraction to new ideas. Richard's struggle to achieve adulthood as a young man influenced by two worlds reveals both the... (more)

American Chica : Two Worlds, One Childhood

American Chica : Two Worlds, One Childhood

by Marie Arana

In her father’s Peruvian family, MARIE ARANA was taught to be a proper lady, yet in her mother’s American family she learned to shoot a gun, break a horse, and snap a chicken’s neck for dinner. Arana shuttled easily between these deeply separate cultures for years. But only when she immigrated with her family to the United States did she come to understand that she was a hybrid American whose cultural identity was... (more)

Five families; Mexican case studies in the culture of poverty

Five families; Mexican case studies in the culture of poverty

by Oscar Lewis

This seminal work in modern cultural anthropology is a dramatic and forceful account of the men, women, and children of five poor Mexican families.

Mexico

by Larry Habegger

"Melting pot," a phrase inevitably associated with the United States, may be even more applicable to Mexico, where ancient civilizations merge with modern cultures in a cross-current of peoples, languages and dialects, art and music, religions, hidden cosmologies, and fabled ruins. Travelers' Tales Mexico explores this deep diversity in essays by important writers who have experienced it firsthand. On his journey... (more)

Familiar Heat

by Mary Hood

When a brutal accident leaves young Faye Perry with permanent amnesia, her new husband, Vic, reverts to his old ways, leading to an estrangement that seems irreparable, but Faye and Vic live in a world where both love and memory can perish and come back to life in wonderful, unexpected ways. Reprint.

and the shadows took him: A Novel

by Daniel Chaco?n

In the barrio of Fresno, California, the Molina family is living out the Chicano version of the American Dream. Father William works on an assembly line while his wife, the well-bred beauty Rachel, stays at home to care for their three children--and to keep them off the streets. But when William is offered an opportunity to enter the ranks of the middle class, he quits his job, packs up the Ford Maverick, and... (more)

The Meaning of Consuelo: A Novel (Bluestreak)

The Meaning of Consuelo: A Novel (Bluestreak)

by Judith Ortiz Cofer

La nina seria, the serious child. That’s how Consuelo’s mother has cast her pensive, book-loving daughter, while Consuelo’s younger sister, Mili, is seen as vivacious—a ray of tropical sunshine. Two daughters: one dark, one light; one to offer comfort and consolation, the other to charm and delight. But something is not right in this Puerto Rican family. Coming of age when American influence threatens to dilute... (more)

A Handbook to Luck

by Cristina Garcia

From the acclaimed author of Monkey Hunting (“A miracle of poetic compression . . . An epic of anecdotes, a vista of brief and beautiful glimpses” — Los Angeles Times Book Review ), a lyrical, haunting, deeply moving new novel. Late 1960s. We meet three children: Enrique Florit, from Cuba, living in southern California with his flamboyant magician father . . . Marta Claros, getting by in the slums of San... (more)

In Nueva York

by Nicholasa Mohr

stories of New York's Puerto Rican barrio

Latinos and the U.S. Political System: Two-Tiered Pluralism

Latinos and the U.S. Political System: Two-Tiered Pluralism

by Rodney E. Hero

Bringing together political science research on Latinos and an analysis of American politics from the vantage point of the Latino political condition, Rodney Hero presents a comprehensive discussion of contemporary Latino politics. The distinct and tenuous nature of Latino status in the U.S. has made it difficult to explain their unique status. This "uniqueness" stems from a variety of circumstances, including the... (more)

Shelfari Book Activity

Tags: living latino

by Junot Diaz

by Rosario Ferre

by Alfonso Gonza?lez, Victor E. Villasenor

by Richard Rodriguez

by Julia Alvarez

by Julia Alvarez

by Victor Martinez

by Nicholasa Mohr

by Jack Delano

by Luis J. Rodriguez

by Jose Antonio Villarreal

by Marie Arana

by Oscar Lewis

by Larry Habegger

by Mary Hood

by Daniel Chaco?n

by Judith Ortiz Cofer

by Cristina Garcia

by Nicholasa Mohr

by Rodney E. Hero