Mexican Enough

Mexican Enough
Author: Stephanie Elizondo Griest
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
Total Pages: 340
Release: 2008-08-05
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 1416579710

Growing up in a half-white, half-brown town and family in South Texas, Stephanie Elizondo Griest struggled with her cultural identity. Upon turning thirty, she ventured to her mother's native Mexico to do some root-searching and stumbled upon a social movement that shook the nation to its core. Mexican Enough chronicles her adventures rumbling with luchadores (professional wrestlers), marching with rebel teachers in Oaxaca, investigating the murder of a prominent gay activist, and sneaking into a prison to meet with indigenous resistance fighters. She also visits families of the undocumented workers she befriended back home. Travel mates include a Polish thief, a Border Patrol agent, and a sultry dominatrix. Part memoir, part journalistic reportage, Mexican Enough illuminates how we cast off our identity in our youth, only to strive to find it again as adults -- and the lessons to be learned along the way.

Mexican WhiteBoy

Mexican WhiteBoy
Author: Matt de la Peña
Publisher: Delacorte Press
Total Pages: 258
Release: 2008-08-12
Genre: Young Adult Fiction
ISBN: 0375891188

Newbery Award-winning and New York Times bestselling author Matt de la Peña's Mexican WhiteBoy is a story of friendship, acceptance, and the struggle to find your identity in a world of definitions. Danny's tall and skinny. Even though he’s not built, his arms are long enough to give his pitch a power so fierce any college scout would sign him on the spot. Ninety-five mile an hour fastball, but the boy’s not even on a team. Every time he gets up on the mound he loses it. But at his private school, they don’t expect much else from him. Danny’ s brown. Half-Mexican brown. And growing up in San Diego that close to the border means everyone else knows exactly who he is before he even opens his mouth. Before they find out he can’t speak Spanish, and before they realize his mom has blond hair and blue eyes, they’ve got him pegged. But it works the other way too. And Danny’s convinced it’s his whiteness that sent his father back to Mexico. That’s why he’s spending the summer with his dad’s family. Only, to find himself, he may just have to face the demons he refuses to see--the demons that are right in front of his face. And open up to a friendship he never saw coming. Matt de la Peña's critically acclaimed novel is an intimate and moving story that offers hope to those who least expect it. "[A] first-rate exploration of self-identity."-SLJ "Unique in its gritty realism and honest portrayal of the complexities of life for inner-city teens...De la Peña poignantly conveys the message that, despite obstacles, you must believe in yourself and shape your own future."-The Horn Book Magazine "The baseball scenes...sizzle like Danny's fastball...Danny's struggle to find his place will speak strongly to all teens, but especially to those of mixed race."-Booklist "De la Peña blends sports and street together in a satisfying search for personal identity."-Kirkus Reviews "Mexican WhiteBoy...shows that no matter what obstacles you face, you can still reach your dreams with a positive attitude. This is more than a book about a baseball player--this is a book about life."-Curtis Granderson, New York Mets outfielder An ALA-YALSA Top Ten Best Book for Young Adults A Junior Library Guild Selection

Living Beyond Borders

Living Beyond Borders
Author: Margarita Longoria
Publisher: Penguin
Total Pages: 241
Release: 2022-05-10
Genre: Young Adult Fiction
ISBN: 0593204980

*"This superb anthology of short stories, comics, and poems is fresh, funny, and full of authentic YA voices revealing what it means to be Mexican American . . . Not to be missed."--SLC, starred review *"Superlative . . . A memorable collection." --Booklist, starred review *"Voices reach out from the pages of this anthology . . . It will make a lasting impression on all readers." --SLJ, starred review Twenty stand-alone short stories, essays, poems, and more from celebrated and award-winning authors make up this YA anthology that explores the Mexican American experience. With works by Francisco X. Stork, Guadalupe Garcia McCall, David Bowles, Rubén Degollado, e.E. Charlton-Trujillo, Diana López, Xavier Garza, Trinidad Gonzales, Alex Temblador, Aida Salazar, Guadalupe Ruiz-Flores, Sylvia Sánchez Garza, Dominic Carrillo, Angela Cervantes, Carolyn Dee Flores, René Saldaña Jr., Justine Narro, Daniel García Ordáz, and Anna Meriano. In this mixed-media collection of short stories, personal essays, poetry, and comics, this celebrated group of authors share the borders they have crossed, the struggles they have pushed through, and the two cultures they continue to navigate as Mexican Americans. Living Beyond Borders is at once an eye-opening, heart-wrenching, and hopeful love letter from the Mexican American community to today's young readers. A powerful exploration of what it means to be Mexican American.

Red and Yellow, Black and Brown

Red and Yellow, Black and Brown
Author: Joanne L. Rondilla
Publisher: Rutgers University Press
Total Pages: 387
Release: 2017-07-03
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 0813587328

Red and Yellow, Black and Brown gathers together life stories and analysis by twelve contributors who express and seek to understand the often very different dynamics that exist for mixed race people who are not part white. The chapters focus on the social, psychological, and political situations of mixed race people who have links to two or more peoples of color— Chinese and Mexican, Asian and Black, Native American and African American, South Asian and Filipino, Black and Latino/a and so on. Red and Yellow, Black and Brown addresses questions surrounding the meanings and communication of racial identities in dual or multiple minority situations and the editors highlight the theoretical implications of this fresh approach to racial studies.

Somewhere Between Bitter and Sweet

Somewhere Between Bitter and Sweet
Author: Laekan Zea Kemp
Publisher: Little, Brown Books for Young Readers
Total Pages: 352
Release: 2021-04-06
Genre: Young Adult Fiction
ISBN: 0316460311

I'm Not Your Perfect Mexican Daughter meets Emergency Contact in this stunning Pura Belpré Honor Book about first love, familial expectations, the power of food, and finding where you belong. Penelope Prado has always dreamed of opening her own pastelería next to her father's restaurant, Nacho's Tacos. But her mom and dad have different plans—leaving Pen to choose between not disappointing her traditional Mexican American parents or following her own path. When she confesses a secret she's been keeping, her world is sent into a tailspin. But then she meets a cute new hire at Nacho's who sees through her hard exterior and asks the questions she's been too afraid to ask herself. Xander Amaro has been searching for home since he was a little boy. For him, a job at Nacho's is an opportunity for just that—a chance at a normal life, to settle in at his abuelo's, and to find the father who left him behind. But when both the restaurant and Xander's immigrant status are threatened, he will do whatever it takes to protect his newfound family and himself. Together, Pen and Xander must navigate first love and discovering where they belong in order to save the place they all call home. This stunning and poignant novel from debut author Laekan Zea Kemp explores identity, found families and the power of food, all nestled within a courageous and intensely loyal Chicanx community.

Citizen Illegal

Citizen Illegal
Author: José Olivarez
Publisher: Haymarket Books
Total Pages: 83
Release: 2018-09-04
Genre: Poetry
ISBN: 1608469557

“Olivarez steps into the ‘inbetween’ standing between Mexico and America in these compelling, emotional poems. Written with humor and sincerity” (Newsweek). Named a Best Book of the Year by Newsweek and NPR. In this “devastating debut” (Publishers Weekly), poet José Olivarez explores the stories, contradictions, joys, and sorrows that embody life in the spaces between Mexico and America. He paints vivid portraits of good kids, bad kids, families clinging to hope, life after the steel mills, gentrifying barrios, and everything in between. Drawing on the rich traditions of Latinx and Chicago writers like Sandra Cisneros and Gwendolyn Brooks, Olivarez creates a home out of life in the in-between. Combining wry humor with potent emotional force, Olivarez takes on complex issues of race, ethnicity, gender, class, and immigration using an everyday language that invites the reader in, with a unique voice that makes him a poet to watch. “The son of Mexican immigrants, Olivarez celebrates his Mexican-American identity and examines how those two sides conflict in a striking collection of poems.” —USA Today

On the Plain of Snakes

On the Plain of Snakes
Author: Paul Theroux
Publisher: Mariner Books
Total Pages: 459
Release: 2019
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 0544866479

Legendary travel writer Theroux drives the entire length of the U.S.-Mexico border, then goes deep into the hinterland to uncover the rich, layered world behind today's brutal headlines.

American Dirt (Oprah's Book Club)

American Dirt (Oprah's Book Club)
Author: Jeanine Cummins
Publisher: Holt Paperbacks
Total Pages: 0
Release: 2022-02
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 1250209781

"También de este lado hay sueños. On this side, too, there are dreams. Lydia Quixano Perez lives in the Mexican city of Acapulco. She runs a bookstore. She has a son, Luca, the love of her life, and a wonderful husband who is a journalist. And while there are cracks beginning to show in Acapulco because of the drug cartels, her life is, by and large, fairly comfortable. Even though she knows they'll never sell, Lydia stocks some of her all-time favorite books in her store. And then one day a man enters the shop to browse and comes up to the register with four books he would like to buy--two of them her favorites. Javier is erudite. He is charming. And, unbeknownst to Lydia, he is the jefe of the newest drug cartel that has gruesomely taken over the city. When Lydia's husband's tell-all profile of Javier is published, none of their lives will ever be the same. Forced to flee, Lydia and eight-year-old Luca soon find themselves miles and worlds away from their comfortable middle-class existence. Instantly transformed into migrants, Lydia and Luca ride la bestia--trains that make their way north toward the United States, which is the only place Javier's reach doesn't extend. As they join the countless people trying to reach el norte, Lydia soon sees that everyone is running from something. But what exactly are they running to? American Dirt will leave readers utterly changed when they finish reading it. A page-turner filled with poignancy, drama, and humanity on every page, it is a literary achievement."--

I Am Not Your Perfect Mexican Daughter

I Am Not Your Perfect Mexican Daughter
Author: Erika L. Sánchez
Publisher: Knopf Books for Young Readers
Total Pages: 352
Release: 2017-10-17
Genre: Young Adult Fiction
ISBN: 1524700509

National Book Award Finalist! Instant New York Times Bestseller! The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian meets Jane the Virgin in this poignant but often laugh-out-loud funny contemporary YA about losing a sister and finding yourself amid the pressures, expectations, and stereotypes of growing up in a Mexican-American home. Perfect Mexican daughters do not go away to college. And they do not move out of their parents’ house after high school graduation. Perfect Mexican daughters never abandon their family. But Julia is not your perfect Mexican daughter. That was Olga’s role. Then a tragic accident on the busiest street in Chicago leaves Olga dead and Julia left behind to reassemble the shattered pieces of her family. And no one seems to acknowledge that Julia is broken, too. Instead, her mother seems to channel her grief into pointing out every possible way Julia has failed. But it’s not long before Julia discovers that Olga might not have been as perfect as everyone thought. With the help of her best friend Lorena, and her first love, first everything boyfriend Connor, Julia is determined to find out. Was Olga really what she seemed? Or was there more to her sister’s story? And either way, how can Julia even attempt to live up to a seemingly impossible ideal? “Alive and crackling—a gritty tale wrapped in a page-turner. ”—The New York Times “Unique and fresh.” —Entertainment Weekly “A standout.” —NPR

Gabi, a Girl in Pieces

Gabi, a Girl in Pieces
Author: Isabel Quintero
Publisher: Cinco Puntos Press
Total Pages: 290
Release: 2014-10-14
Genre: Juvenile Fiction
ISBN: 1935955942

Gabi’s a girl in pieces. She wants a lot of things. Will she find the thing she needs most?