In celebration of Hispanic Heritage Month, Watzek displayed a selection of titles near the library service desk, chosen in collaboration with the Office of Inclusion and Multicultural Engagement. Click on any title to check real-time availability.
American Like Me by
From award-winning actress and political activist America Ferrera comes a vibrant and varied collection of first-person accounts from prominent figures about the experience of growing up between cultures. America Ferrera has always felt wholly American, and yet, her identity is inextricably linked to her parents' homeland and Honduran culture. Speaking Spanish at home, having Saturday-morning-salsa-dance-parties in the kitchen, and eating tamales alongside apple pie at Christmas never seemed at odds with her American identity. Still, she yearned to see that identity reflected in the larger American narrative. Now, in American Like Me, America invites thirty-one of her friends, peers, and heroes to share their stories about life between cultures. We know them as actors, comedians, athletes, politicians, artists, and writers. However, they are also immigrants, children or grandchildren of immigrants, indigenous people, or people who otherwise grew up with deep and personal connections to more than one culture. Each of them struggled to establish a sense of self, find belonging, and feel seen. And they call themselves American enthusiastically, reluctantly, or not at all. Ranging from the heartfelt to the hilarious, their stories shine a light on a quintessentially American experience and will appeal to anyone with a complicated relationship to family, culture, and growing up.
Call Number: E184.A1 A63625 2018Publication Date: 2018
Bless Me, Ultima by
From "one of the nation's foremost Chicano literary artists" comes a coming-of-age classic and the bestselling Chicano novel of all time that follows a young boy as he questions his faith and beliefs -- now one of PBS's "100 Great American Reads" (Denver Post). Antonio Marez is six years old when Ultima comes to stay with his family in New Mexico. She is a curandera, one who cures with herbs and magic. Under her wise wing, Tony will probe the family ties that bind and rend him, and he will discover himself in the magical secrets of the pagan past--a mythic legacy as palpable as the Catholicism of Latin America. And at each life turn there is Ultima, who delivered Tony into the world... and will nurture the birth of his soul.
Call Number: PS 3551 .N27 B55 1999Publication Date: 1994
Donde Se Acaba el Norte by
Una novela de sueños y descubrimiento donde el misticismo y la sabiduría indígena chocan con el poder y la autoridad de la Iglesia y la Inquisición. Uriel, un aspirante a escritor bloqueado, está misteriosamente atrapado en el cuerpo de Diego, un novicio franciscano del siglo diecisiete. Uriel cree haber tenido un grave accidente y no sabe si se encuentra en estado catatónico, de ensoñación, o de transición hacia otra vida o dimensión. Diego ha sido acusado de herejía en la Cd. de México y, para expiar sus pecados y evitar ser quemado en la hoguera de la Inquisición, sus superiores lo envían a Nuevo México con la misión de catequizar a los apaches. Allí Uriel/Diego se encuentra y convive con personajes memorables: un fraile franciscano milenarista que dice ser su padre y quien recuerda al legendario Antônio Conselheiro de Canudos, el protagonista de la magistral Guerra del fin del mundo de Mario Vargas Llosa; a Refugio, un chamán apache inspirado en el Don Juan de Carlos Castañeda, quien se convierte en el maestro y guía de Diego/Uriel en su viaje por el ámbito astral de los sueños y el Más Allá; a Lucio, un mulo que añora llegar a la Tierra Prometida y quien tiene la facultad de hablar como el famoso Asno de Oro de Apuleyo; y a Alma, su amor eterno, quien recientemente se suicidó y a quien Uriel plagió sus diarios íntimos mientras intentaba escribir una novela negra sobre los feminicidios de Ciudad Juárez. Durante el transcurso del relato, Uriel/Diego confronta un sinnúmero de situaciones angustiantes que lo hacen cuestionarlo todo, incluyendo su existencia y su razón de ser. Con hábil fuerza narrativa y lírico lenguaje descriptivo, el autor entrelaza las historias de Uriel y Diego a modo de La noche boca arriba de Julio Cortázar, manteniendo al lector en suspenso hasta la última página.
Call Number: PQ7079.3.M67 D66 2021Publication Date: 2020
Dominicana by
A GOOD MORNING AMERICA BOOK CLUB PICK Shortlisted for the 2020 Women's Prize for Fiction "Through a novel with so much depth, beauty, and grace, we, like Ana, are forever changed." --Jacqueline Woodson, Vanity Fair "Gorgeous writing, gorgeous story." --Sandra Cisneros Fifteen-year-old Ana Cancion never dreamed of moving to America, the way the girls she grew up with in the Dominican countryside did. But when Juan Ruiz proposes and promises to take her to New York City, she has to say yes. It doesn't matter that he is twice her age, that there is no love between them. Their marriage is an opportunity for her entire close-knit family to eventually immigrate. So on New Year's Day, 1965, Ana leaves behind everything she knows and becomes Ana Ruiz, a wife confined to a cold six-floor walk-up in Washington Heights. Lonely and miserable, Ana hatches a reckless plan to escape. But at the bus terminal, she is stopped by Cesar, Juan's free-spirited younger brother, who convinces her to stay. As the Dominican Republic slides into political turmoil, Juan returns to protect his family's assets, leaving Cesar to take care of Ana. Suddenly, Ana is free to take English lessons at a local church, lie on the beach at Coney Island, see a movie at Radio City Music Hall, go dancing with Cesar, and imagine the possibility of a different kind of life in America. When Juan returns, Ana must decide once again between her heart and her duty to her family. In bright, musical prose that reflects the energy of New York City, Angie Cruz's Dominicana is a vital portrait of the immigrant experience and the timeless coming-of-age story of a young woman finding her voice in the world.
Call Number: PS3603.R89 D66 2019Publication Date: 2019
The House on Mango Street by
In hardcover for the first time--on the tenth anniversary of its initial publication--the greatly admired and bestselling book about a young girl growing up in the Latino section of Chicago. Sometimes heartbreaking, sometimes deeply joyous, this novel depicts a new American landscape through its multiple characters.
Call Number: PS3553.I78 H6 1994Publication Date: 1994
Selected Poems by
When Viking published Borges's Collected Fictions last September, the book received nationwide acclaim. Richard Bernstein in The New York Times hailed the publication as "an event, and cause for celebration." The celebration continues this April with the next installment in Vikings projected three-volume set of the Collected Work: a new selection of Borges's finest poems edited by Alexander Coleman. Selected Poems brings together some two hundred poems -- the largest collection of Borges's poetry ever assembled in English, including many never previously translated. The selection draws from a lifetime's work -- from Borges's earliest work in the 20s, his debut Fervor de Buenos Aires (1923), to his final poetic work, Los Conjurados (1985). Throughout the volume, the brilliance of the Spanish originals is matched with luminous English versions rendered by a remarkable cast of translators, among them W. S. Merwin, John Updike, Robert Fitzgerald, Mark Strand and Alastair Reid.
Call Number: PQ7797.B635 A2 1999Publication Date: 1999
For Brown Girls with Sharp Edges and Tender Hearts by
The founder of Latina Rebels' "electrifying debut" (LA Times) arms women of color with the tools and knowledge they need to find success on their own terms For generations, Brown girls have had to push against powerful forces of sexism, racism, and classism, often feeling alone in the struggle. By founding Latina Rebels, Prisca Dorcas Mojica Rodríguez has created a community to help women fight together. In For Brown Girls with Sharp Edges and Tender Hearts, she offers wisdom and a liberating path forward for all women of color. She crafts powerful ways to address the challenges Brown girls face, from imposter syndrome to colorism. She empowers women to decolonize their worldview, and defy "universal" white narratives, by telling their own stories. Her book guides women of color toward a sense of pride and sisterhood and offers essential tools to energize a movement. May it spark a fire within you.
Call Number: E184.N53 M65 2021Publication Date: 2021
Voces de Hispanoamerica by
VOCES DE HISPANOAMÉRICA, the market-leading anthology, includes authors from the colonial period to the present and incorporates some of the most influential writers in Latin America.
Call Number: PQ7083 .V59 2004Publication Date: 2003
This Bridge Called My Back by
Updated and expanded edition of the foundational text of women of color feminism.
Call Number: PS509.F44 T5 2015Publication Date: 2015
