Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Social Justice

Available at NECC Online.

Summary: The philosopher Jorge J. E. Gracia engages fifteen prominent scholars on race, ethnicity, nationality, and Hispanic/Latino identity

Available at NECC Online.

Summary: The Hispanic population has dramatically grown since the middle of the 20th Century. Demographers predict that by the year 2050, one in three Americans will of Hispanic origin. But the Hispanic population is not a homogeneous group; it varies by race and ethnicity, culture, economic status, education, and other important factors. The purpose of the present volume is to provide information on selected topics regarding the growth, distribution, and size of the Hispanic population. The volume brings together an eclectic set of six research papers. The first four examine traditional demographic topics: population growth, mortality, and immigration. The last two address topics that are not often examined among Hispanics: Hispanic Baby Boomers, and an interesting study on self identification among Hispanics using vital events data and census data.--From publisher description.

Available at NECC Online.

Summary: An Atlas and Survey of Latin American History provides a comprehensive, accessible introduction to both the human and physical geography of Latin America and the social, cultural, political and economic events that have defined its history. Featuring 77 maps and accompanying text, the book provides topical overviews of the key developments and movements in Latin American history, ranging from the earliest human settlement to the present day. The fully updated second edition includes a new chapter on Latin America in the 21st century, featuring maps and essays on topics ranging from sports and telenovelas to the growth of the Latin American middle class and the rise and ebb of left-leaning political movements. Highly readable and beautifully designed, An Atlas and Survey of Latin American History 2e remains an engaging resource for students and others interested in Latin American history, politics, and culture.

Available at NECC Online.

Summary: The New Latino Studies Reader is designed as a contemporary, updated, multifaceted collection of writings that bring to force the exciting, necessary scholarship of the last decades. Its aim is to introduce a new generation of students to a wide-ranging set of essays that helps them gain a truer understanding of what it's like to be a Latino in the United States.   With the reader, students explore the sociohistorical formation of Latinos as a distinct panethnic group in the United States, delving into issues of class formation; social stratification; racial, gender, and sexual identities; and politics and cultural production. And while other readers now in print may discuss Mexican Americans, Puerto Ricans, Cubans and Central Americans as distinct groups with unique experiences, this text explores both the commonalities and the differences that structure the experiences of Latino Americans. Timely, thorough, and thought-provoking, The New Latino Studies Reader provides a genuine view of the Latino experience as a whole.  

Available at Overdrive.

Summary: NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER * "It's Lovecraft meets the Brontës in Latin America, and after a slow-burn start Mexican Gothic gets seriously weird."--The Guardian   IN DEVELOPMENT AS A HULU ORIGINAL LIMITED SERIES PRODUCED BY KELLY RIPA AND MARK CONSUELOS * FINALIST FOR THE LOCUS AWARD *  NOMINATED FOR THE BRAM STOKER AWARD * NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY The New Yorker * Vanity Fair * NPR * The Washington Post * Tordotcom * Marie Claire * Vox * Mashable * Men's Health * Library Journal * Book Riot * LibraryReads   An isolated mansion. A chillingly charismatic aristocrat. And a brave socialite drawn to expose their treacherous secrets. . . . From the author of Gods of Jade and Shadow comes "a terrifying twist on classic gothic horror" (Kirkus Reviews) set in glamorous 1950s Mexico. After receiving a frantic letter from her newly-wed cousin begging for someone to save her from a mysterious doom, Noemí Taboada heads to High Place, a distant house in the Mexican countryside. She's not sure what she will find--her cousin's husband, a handsome Englishman, is a stranger, and Noemí knows little about the region.      Noemí is also an unlikely rescuer: She's a glamorous debutante, and her chic gowns and perfect red lipstick are more suited for cocktail parties than amateur sleuthing. But she's also tough and smart, with an indomitable will, and she is not afraid: Not of her cousin's new husband, who is both menacing and alluring; not of his father, the ancient patriarch who seems to be fascinated by Noemí; and not even of the house itself, which begins to invade Noemi's dreams with visions of blood and doom.   Her only ally in this inhospitable abode is the family's youngest son. Shy and gentle, he seems to want to help Noemí, but might also be hiding dark knowledge of his family's past. For there are many secrets behind the walls of High Place. The family's once colossal wealth and faded mining empire kept them from prying eyes, but as Noemí digs deeper she unearths stories of violence and madness.    And Noemí, mesmerized by the terrifying yet seductive world of High Place, may soon find it impossible to ever leave this enigmatic house behind. "It's as if a supernatural power compels us to turn the pages of the gripping Mexican Gothic."--The Washington Post "Mexican Gothic is the perfect summer horror read, and marks Moreno-Garcia with her hypnotic and engaging prose as one of the genre's most exciting talents."--Nerdist "A period thriller as rich in suspense as it is in lush '50s atmosphere."--Entertainment Weekly

Available at Overdrive.

Summary: hen fifteen-year-old Maribel Rivera sustains a terrible injury, the Riveras leave behind a comfortable life in Mexico and risk everything to come to the United States so that Maribel can have the care she needs. Once they arrive, it’s not long before Maribel attracts the attention of Mayor Toro, the son of one of their new neighbors, who sees a kindred spirit in this beautiful, damaged outsider. Their love story sets in motion events that will have profound repercussions for everyone involved. Here Henríquez seamlessly interweaves the story of these star-crossed lovers, and of the Rivera and Toro families, with the testimonials of men and women who have come to the United States from all over Latin America. The Book of Unknown Americans is a stunning novel of hopes and dreams, guilt and love—a book that offers a resonant new definition of what it means to be American.

Available at Overdrive.

Summary: 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.

Available at Overdrive.

Summary: From debut author and longtime zine-maker Celia C. Pérez, The First Rule of Punk is a wry and heartfelt exploration of friendship, finding your place, and learning to rock out like no one's watching.
There are no shortcuts to surviving your first day at a new school—you can't fix it with duct tape like you would your Chuck Taylors. On Day One, twelve-year-old Malú (María Luisa, if you want to annoy her) inadvertently upsets Posada Middle's queen bee, violates the school's dress code with her punk rock look, and disappoints her college-professor mom in the process. Her dad, who now lives a thousand miles away, says things will get better as long as she remembers the first rule of punk: be yourself.

The real Malú loves rock music, skateboarding, zines, and Soyrizo (hold the cilantro, please). And when she assembles a group of like-minded misfits at school and starts a band, Malú finally begins to feel at home. She'll do anything to preserve this, which includes standing up to an anti-punk school administration to fight for her right to express herself!
Black and white illustrations and collage art throughout make The First Rule of Punk a perfect pick for fans of books like Roller Girl and online magazines like Rookie.

Available at NECC Lawrence.

Summary: Winner of the 2014 Pura Belpré Author Award In Meg Medina's compelling new novel, a Latina teen is targeted by a bully at her new school - and must discover resources she never knew she had.One morning before school, some girl tells Piddy Sanchez that Yaqui Delgado hates her and wants to kick her ass. Piddy doesn't even know who Yaqui is, never mind what she's done to piss her off. Word is that Yaqui thinks Piddy is stuck-up, shakes her stuff when she walks, and isn't Latin enough with her white skin, good grades, and no accent. And Yaqui isn't kidding around, so Piddy better watch her back. At first Piddy is more concerned with trying to find out more about the father she's never met and how to balance honors courses with her weekend job at the neighborhood hair salon. But as the harassment escalates, avoiding Yaqui and her gang starts to take over Piddy's life. Is there any way for Piddy to survive without closing herself off or running away? In an all-too-realistic novel, Meg Medina portrays a sympathetic heroine who is forced to decide who she really is.

Available at NECC Haverhill.

Summary: In this poetic memoir, which won the Pura Belpré Author Award, was a YALSA Nonfiction Finalist, and was named a Walter Dean Myers Award Honoree, acclaimed author Margarita Engle tells of growing up as a child of two cultures during the Cold War. Margarita is a girl from two worlds. Her heart lies in Cuba, her mother's tropical island country, a place so lush with vibrant life that it seems like a fairy tale kingdom. But most of the time she lives in Los Angeles, lonely in the noisy city and dreaming of the summers when she can take a plane through the enchanted air to her beloved island. Words and images are her constant companions, friendly and comforting when the children at school are not. Then a revolution breaks out in Cuba. Margarita fears for her far-away family. When the hostility between Cuba and the United States erupts at the Bay of Pigs Invasion, Margarita's worlds collide in the worst way possible. How can the two countries she loves hate each other so much? And will she ever get to visit her beautiful island again?

Available at NECC Haverhill.

Summary: "Winner of the National Book Award for Young People's Literature, the Michael L. Printz Award, and the Pura Belpré Award! Fans of Jacqueline Woodson, Meg Medina, and Jason Reynolds will fall hard for this astonishing New York Times-bestselling novel-in-verse by an award-winning slam poet, about an Afro-Latina heroine who tells her story with blazing words and powerful truth. Xiomara Batista feels unheard and unable to hide in her Harlem neighborhood. Ever since her body grew into curves, she has learned to let her fists and her fierceness do the talking. But Xiomara has plenty she wants to say, and she pours all her frustration and passion onto the pages of a leather notebook, reciting the words to herself like prayers--especially after she catches feelings for a boy in her bio class named Aman, who her family can never know about. With Mami's determination to force her daughter to obey the laws of the church, Xiomara understands that her thoughts are best kept to herself. So when she is invited to join her school's slam poetry club, she doesn't know how she could ever attend without her mami finding out. But she still can't stop thinking about performing her poems. Because in the face of a world that may not want to hear her, Xiomara refuses to be silent. "Crackles with energy and snaps with authenticity and voice." --Justina Ireland, author of Dread Nation "An incredibly potent debut." --Jason Reynolds, author of the National Book Award Finalist Ghost "Acevedo has amplified the voices of girls en el barrio who are equal parts goddess, saint, warrior, and hero." --Ibi Zoboi, author of American Street"

Available at NECC Haverhill.

Summary: 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

Available at NECC Haverhill.

Summary: Pura Belpré Honor winner for The Revolution of Evelyn Serrano and one of America's most influential Hispanics--'Maria' on Sesame Street--delivers a beautifully wrought coming-of-age memoir.Set in the 1950s in the Bronx, this is the story of a girl with a dream. Emmy Award-winning actress and writer Sonia Manzano plunges us into the daily lives of a Latino family that is loving--and troubled. This is Sonia's own story rendered with an unforgettable narrative power. When readers meet young Sonia, she is a child living amidst the squalor of a boisterous home that is filled with noisy relatives and nosy neighbors. Each day she is glued to the TV screen that blots out the painful realities of her existence and also illuminates the possibilities that lie ahead. But--click!--when the TV goes off, Sonia is taken back to real life--the cramped, colorful world of her neighborhood and an alcoholic father. But it is Sonia's dream of becoming an actress that keeps her afloat among the turbulence of her life and times. Spiced with culture, heartache, and humor, this memoir paints a lasting portrait of a girl's resilience as she grows up to become an inspiration to millions.

Available at NECC Haverhill.

Summary: During the early colonial encounter, children?s books were among the first kinds of literature produced by US writers introducing the new colony, its people, and the US?s role as a twentieth-century colonial power to the public. Subsequently, youth literature and media were important tools of Puerto Rican cultural and educational elite institutions and Puerto Rican revolutionary thought as a means of negotiating US assimilation and upholding a strong Latin American, Caribbean national stance. In Side by Side: US Empire, Puerto Rico, and the Roots of American Youth Literature and Culture, author Marilisa Jiménez García focuses on the contributions of the Puerto Rican community to American youth, approaching Latinx literature as a transnational space that provides a critical lens for examining the lingering consequences of US and Spanish colonialism for US communities of color. Through analysis of texts typically outside traditional Latinx or literary studies such as young adult literature, textbooks, television programming, comics, music, curriculum, and youth movements, Side by Side represents the only comprehensive study of the contributions of Puerto Ricans to American youth literature and culture, as well as the only comprehensive study into the role of youth literature and culture in Puerto Rican literature and thought. Considering recent debates over diversity in children?s and young adult literature and media and the strained relationship between Puerto Rico and the US, Jiménez García's timely work encourages us to question who constitutes the expert and to resist the homogenization of Latinxs, as well as other marginalized communities, that has led to the erasure of writers, scholars, and artists.

Available at NECC Online.

Summary: Children's and young adult literature has become an essential medium for identity formation in contemporary Latino/a culture in the United States. This book is an original collection of more than thirty interviews led by Frederick Luis Aldama with Latino/a authors working in the genre. The conversations revolve around the conveyance of young Latino/a experience, and what that means for the authors as they overcome societal obstacles and aesthetic complexity. The authors also speak extensively about their experiences within the publishing industry and with their audiences. As such, Aldama's collection presents an open forum to contemporary Latino/a writers working in a vital literary category and sheds new light on the myriad formats, distinctive nature, and cultural impact it offers.   

Available at NECC Lawrence.

Summary: An epic novel of love, discovery, and adventure by the author of the best-selling memoir When I Was Puerto Rican. As a young girl growing up in Spain, Ana Larragoity Cubillas is powerfully drawn to Puerto Rico by the diaries of an ancestor who traveled there with Ponce de León. And in handsome twin brothers Ramón and Inocente—both in love with Ana—she finds a way to get there. She marries Ramón, and in 1844, just eighteen, she travels across the ocean to a remote sugar plantation the brothers have inherited on the island. Ana faces unrelenting heat, disease and isolation, and the dangers of the untamed countryside even as she relishes the challenge of running Hacienda los Gemelos. But when the Civil War breaks out in the United States, Ana finds her livelihood, and perhaps even her life, threatened by the very people on whose backs her wealth has been built: the hacienda’s slaves, whose richly drawn stories unfold alongside her own. And when at last Ana falls for a man who may be her destiny—a once-forbidden love—she will sacrifice nearly everything to keep hold of the land that has become her true home. This is a sensual, riveting tale, set in a place where human passions and cruelties collide: thrilling history that has never before been brought so vividly and unforgettably to life.

Available at NECC Haverhill.

Summary: Eduardo Lalo is one of the most vital and unique voices of Latin American literature, but his work is relatively little known in the English-speaking world. That changes now: this masterful translation of his most celebrated novel, Simone--which won the 2013 Rómulo Gallegos International Novel Prize--will introduce an English-language audience to this extraordinary literary talent. A tale of alienation, love, suspense, imagination, and literature set on the streets of San Juan, Puerto Rico, Simone tells the story of a self-educated Chinese immigrant student courting (and stalking) a disillusioned, unnamed writer who is struggling to make a name for himself in a place that is not exactly a hotbed of literary fame. By turns solipsistic and political, romantic and dark, Simone begins with the writer's frustrated, satiric observations on his native city and the banal life of the university where he teaches--forces utterly at odds with the sensuality of his writing. But, as mysterious messages and literary clues begin to appear--scrawled on sidewalks and walls, inside volumes set out in bookstores, left on his answering machine and under his windshield wiper--Simone progresses into a cat-and-mouse game between the writer and his mystery stalker. When the eponymous Simone's identity is at last revealed, the writer finds in the life of this Chinese immigrant a plight not unlike his own. Traumatized and lonely, the pair moves towards bittersweet collaborations in passion, grief, and art.

Available at NECC Lawrence.

Summary: In 1939, the Saint Louis sails from Hamburg into Havana's port with hundreds of Jewish refugees seeking asylum from the Nazi regime. From the docks, nine-year-old Daniel Kaminsky watches as the passengers, including his mother, father, and sister, become embroiled in a fiasco of Cuban corruption. But the Kaminskys have a treasure that they hope will save them: a small Rembrandt portrait of Christ. Yet six days later the vessel is forced to leave the harbor with the family, bound for the horrors of Europe. The Kaminskys, along with their priceless heirloom, disappear. Nearly seven decades later, the Rembrandt reappears in an auction house in London, prompting Daniel's son to travel to Cuba to track down the story of his family's lost masterpiece. He hires the down-on-his-luck private detective Mario Conde, and together they navigate a web of deception and violence in the morally complex city of Havana. In Heretics, Leonardo Padura takes us from the tenements and beaches of Cuba to Rembrandt's gloomy studio in seventeenth-century Amsterdam, telling the story of people forced to choose between the tenets of their faith and the realities of the world, between their personal desires and the demands of their times. A grand detective story and a moving historical drama, Padura's novel is as compelling, mysterious, and enduring as the painting at its center.

Available at NECC Haverhill and Lawrence.

Summary: 25th Anniversary Edition "A magnificent treasure for all cultures and all time." --St. Petersburg Times   It is November 25, 1960, and three beautiful sisters have been found near their wrecked Jeep at the bottom of a 150-foot cliff on the north coast of the Dominican Republic. The official state newspaper reports their deaths as accidental. It does not mention that a fourth sister lives. Nor does it explain that the sisters were among the leading opponents of Gen. Rafael Leónidas Trujillo's dictatorship. It doesn't have to. Everybody knows of Las Mariposas--the Butterflies. In this extraordinary novel, the voices of all four sisters--Minerva, Patria, María Teresa, and the survivor, Dedé--speak across the decades to tell their own stories, from secret crushes to gunrunning, and to describe the everyday horrors of life under Trujillo's rule. Through the art and magic of Julia Alvarez's imagination, the martyred Butterflies live again in this novel of courage and love, and the human costs of political oppression. Julia Alvarez's new novel, Afterlife, is available now.

Available at NECC Lawrence.

Summary: Barcelona 1945, Semper lleva a su hijo Daniel al "cementerio de libros olvidados", un edificio grande, viejo y sombrío, lleno de volúmenes que la gente ha ido llevando allí para preservarlos del abandono o destrucción; según la tradición quien entra por primera vez tiene que adoptar un libro. Entre lo miles de títulos, Daniel se siente atraído por "La sombra del viento" de Julián Carax, una novela de misterio; esa noche en su casa lo lee de un tirón. Al día siguiente mucha gente desea este libro, unos lo quieren comprar pagando más de lo que vale, otros lo quieren quemar... En los siguientes años Daniel se verá envuelto en crímenes, intrigas y correrá peligro por proteger el libro de ciertas personas o al curiosear en la vida de Julián Carax, descubriendo que es tan enigmática o más que sus novelas.

Available at NECC Haverhill and Lawrence.

Summary: The Savage Detectives is an exuberant, raunchy, wildly inventive, and ambitious novel from one of the greatest Latin American authors of our age. National Bestseller New Year's Eve, 1975: Arturo Belano and Ulises Lima, founders of the visceral realist movement in poetry, leave Mexico City in a borrowed white Impala. Their quest: to track down the obscure, vanished poet Cesárea Tinajero. A violent showdown in the Sonora desert turns search to flight; twenty years later Belano and Lima are still on the run. The explosive first long work by "the most exciting writer to come from south of the Rio Grande in a long time" (Ilan Stavans,Los Angeles Times),The Savage Detectivesfollows Belano and Lima through the eyes of the people whose paths they cross in Central America, Europe, Israel, and West Africa. This chorus includes the muses of visceral realism, the beautiful Font sisters; their father, an architect interned in a Mexico City asylum; a sensitive young follower of Octavio Paz; a foul-mouthed American graduate student; a French girl with a taste for the Marquis de Sade; the great-granddaughter of Leon Trotsky; a Chilean stowaway with a mystical gift fornumbers; the anorexic heiress to a Mexican underwear empire; an Argentinian photojournalist in Angola; and assorted hangers-on, detractors, critics, lovers, employers, vagabonds, real-life literary figures, and random acquaintances. A polymathic descendant of Borges and Pynchon, Roberto Bolaño traces the hidden connection between literature and violence in a world where national boundaries are fluid and death lurks in the shadow of the avant-garde.The Savage Detectivesis a dazzling original, the first great Latin American novel of the twenty-first century.

Available at NECC Haverhill.

Summary: Available for the first time in English, Cruz Miguel Ortiz Cuadra's magisterial history of the foods and eating habits of Puerto Rico unfolds into an examination of Puerto Rican society from the Spanish conquest to the present. Each chapter is centered on an iconic Puerto Rican foodstuff, from rice and cornmeal to beans, roots, herbs, fish, and meat. Ortiz shows how their production and consumption connects with race, ethnicity, gender, social class, and cultural appropriation in Puerto Rico. Using a multidisciplinary approach and a sweeping array of sources, Ortiz asks whether Puerto Ricans really still are what they ate. Whether judging by a host of social and economic factors--or by the foods once eaten that have now disappeared--Ortiz concludes that the nature of daily life in Puerto Rico has experienced a sea change.

Available at NECC Online.

Summary: As late as the 1960s, tacos were virtually unknown outside Mexico and the American Southwest. Within fifty years the United States had shipped taco shells everywhere from Alaska to Australia, Morocco to Mongolia. But how did this tasty hand-held food--and Mexican food more broadly--become so ubiquitous?In Planet Taco, Jeffrey Pilcher traces the historical origins and evolution of Mexico's national cuisine, explores its incarnation as a Mexican American fast-food, shows how surfers became global pioneers of Mexican food, and how Corona beer conquered the world. Pilcher is particularly enlightening on what the history of Mexican food reveals about the uneasy relationship between globalization and authenticity. The burritos and taco shells that many people think of as Mexican were actually created in the United States. But Pilcher argues that the contemporary struggle between globalization and national sovereignty to determine the authenticity of Mexican food goes back hundreds of years. During the nineteenth century, Mexicans searching for a national cuisine were torn between nostalgic "Creole" Hispanic dishes of the past and French haute cuisine, the global food of the day. Indigenous foods were scorned as unfit for civilized tables. Only when Mexican American dishes were appropriated by the fast food industry and carried around the world did Mexican elites rediscover the foods of the ancient Maya and Aztecs and embrace the indigenous roots of their national cuisine.From a taco cart in Hermosillo, Mexico to the "Chili Queens" of San Antonio and tamale vendors in L.A., Jeffrey Pilcher follows this highly adaptable cuisine, paying special attention to the people too often overlooked in the battle to define authentic Mexican food: Indigenous Mexicans and Mexican Americans.

Available at NECC Lawrence.

Summary: Gran Cocina Latina unifies the vast culinary landscape of the Latin world, from Mexico to Argentina and all the Spanish-speaking countries of the Caribbean. In one volume it gives home cooks, armchair travelers, and curious chefs the first comprehensive collection of recipes from this region. An inquisitive historian and a successful restaurateur, Maricel E. Presilla has spent more than thirty years visiting each country personally. She's gathered more than 500 recipes for the full range of dishes, from the foundational adobos and sofritos to empanadas and tamales to ceviches and moles to sancocho and desserts such as flan and tres leches cake. Detailed equipment notes, drink and serving suggestions, and color photographs of finished dishes are also included. This is a one-of-a-kind cookbook to be savored and read as much for the writing and information as for its introduction to heretofore unrevealed recipes.

NECC Online.

Summary: The Sounds of Latinidad explores the Latino music scene as a lens through which to understand changing ideas about latinidad in the New South. Focusing on Latino immigrant musicians and their fans in Charlotte, North Carolina, the volume shows how limited economic mobility, social marginalization, and restrictive immigration policies have stymied immigrants' access to the American dream and musicians' dreams of success. Instead, Latin music has become a way to form community, debate political questions, and claim cultural citizenship. The volume illuminates the complexity of Latina/o musicians.

Available at NECC Haverhill.

Summary: Listen Up When the New York-born Tito Puente composed "Oye Como Va " in the 1960s, his popular song was called Latin even though it was a fusion of Afro-Cuban and New York Latino musical influences. A decade later, Carlos Santana, a Mexican immigrant, blended PuenteOCOs tune with rock and roll, which brought it to the attention of national audiences. Like Puente and Santana, Latino/a musicians have always blended musics from their homelands with other sounds in our multicultural society, challenging ideas of what Latin music is or ought to be. Waves of immigrants further complicate the picture as they continue to bring their distinctive musical styles to the U.S.OCofrom merengue and bachata to cumbia and reggaeton. Ina"Oye Como Va ," Deborah Pacini Hernandez traces the trajectories of various U.S. Latino musical forms in a globalizing world, examining how the blending of Latin music reflects Latino/a American lives connecting across nations. Exploring the simultaneously powerful, vexing, and stimulating relationship between hybridity, music, and identity, a"Oye Como Va "aasserts that this potent combination is a signature of the U.S. Latino/a experience.

Available at NECC Online.

Summary: Rock the Nation analyzes Latino/a identity through rock 'n' roll music and its deep Latin/o history. By linking rock music to Latinos and to music from Latin America, the author argues that Latin/o music, people, and culture have been central to the development of rock music as a major popular music form, in spite of North American racial logic that marginalizes Latino/as as outsiders, foreigners, and always exotic. According to the author, the Latin/o Rock Diaspora illuminates complex identity issues and interesting paradoxes with regard to identity politics, such as nationalism. Latino/as use rock music for assimilation to mainstream North American culture, while in Latin America, rock music in Spanish is used to resist English and the hegemony of U.S. culture. Meanwhile, singing in English and adopting U.S. popular culture allows youth to resist the hegemonic nationalisms of their own countries. Thus, throughout the Americas, Latino/as utilize rock music for assimilation to mainstream national culture(s), for resistance to the hegemony of dominant culture(s), and for mediating the negotiation of Latino/a identities.

Available at NECC Haverhill.

Summary: Salsa, the irresistible dance music of the Spanish-speaking world, has made its way into the lives of millions around the globe. But salsa is only one of many popular Latin rhythms. The first comprehensive guide to the music, its history, and its legends, Musica! charts the vast territory of this lively Latin heritage, which began in Cuba and spread throughout the Caribbean and into North and South America. Illustrated with contemporary and vintage photos, Musica! features a gallery of legendary musical performers, plus sections on the musical styles and dances including the rumba, mambo, cha-cha, and merengue. A discography and bibliography complete this comprehensive story of Latin America's extraordinary rhythmic tradition.

Available at NECC Online.

Summary: In Caribbean and Atlantic Diaspora Dance: Igniting Citizenship, Yvonne Daniel provides a sweeping cultural and historical examination of diaspora dance genres. In discussing relationships among African, Caribbean, and other diasporic dances, Daniel investigates social dances brought to the islands by Europeans and Africans, including quadrilles and drum-dances as well as popular dances that followed, such as Carnival parading, Pan-Caribbean danzas,rumba, merengue, mambo, reggae, and zouk. Daniel reviews sacred dance and closely documents combat dances, such as Martinican ladja, Trinidadian kalinda, and Cuban juego de maní. In drawing on scores of performers and consultants from the region as well as on her own professional dance experience and acumen, Daniel adeptly places Caribbean dance in the context of cultural and economic globalization, connecting local practices to transnational and global processes and emphasizing the important role of dance in critical regional tourism.

Available at NECC Lawrence.

Summary: Latin American athletes have achieved iconic status in global popular culture, but what do we know about the communities of women in sport? Futbolera is the first monograph on women's sports in Latin America. Because sports evoke such passion, they are fertile ground for understanding the formation of social classes, national and racial identities, sexuality, and gender roles. Futbolera tells the stories of women athletes and fans as they navigated the pressures and possibilities within organized sports. Futbolera charts the rise of physical education programs for girls, often driven by ideas of eugenics and proper motherhood, that laid the groundwork for women's sports clubs, which began to thrive beyond the confines of school systems. Futbolera examines how women challenged both their exclusion from national pastimes and their lack of access to leisure, bodily integrity, and public space. This vibrant history also examines women's sports through comparative case studies of Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Costa Rica, Mexico, and others. Special attention is given to women's sports during military dictatorships of the 1970s and 1980s as well as the feminist and democratic movements that followed. The book culminates by exploring recent shifts in mindset toward women's football and dynamic social movements of players across Latin America.

Available at NECC Haverhilll.

Summary: Pedro Martínez. Sammy Sosa. Manny Ramírez.  By 2000, Dominican baseball players were in every Major League clubhouse, and regularly winning every baseball award. In 2002, Omar Minaya became the first Dominican general manager of a Major League team. But how did this codependent relationship between MLB and Dominican talent arise and thrive?  In his incisive and engaging book, Dominican Baseball, Alan Klein examines the history of MLB's presence and influence in the Dominican Republic, the development of the booming industry and academies, and the dependence on Dominican player developers, known as buscones. He also addresses issues of identity fraud and the use of performance-enhancing drugs as hopefuls seek to play professionally. Dominican Baseball charts the trajectory of the economic flows of this transnational exchange, and the pride Dominicans feel in their growing influence in the sport. Klein also uncovers the prejudice that prompts MLB to diminish Dominican claims on legitimacy. This sharp, smartly argued book deftly chronicles the uneasy and often contested relations of the contemporary Dominican game and industry. 

Available at NECC Online.

Summary: Ceded to the United States under the terms of the Treaty of Paris after the Spanish-American War of 1898, Puerto Rico has since remained a colonial territory. Despite this subordinated colonial experience, however, Puerto Ricans managed to secure national Olympic representation in the 1930s and in so doing nurtured powerful ideas of nationalism. By examining how the Olympic movement developed in Puerto Rico, Antonio Sotomayor illuminates the profound role sports play in the political and cultural processes of an identity that evolved within a political tradition of autonomy rather than traditional political independence. Significantly, it was precisely in the Olympic arena that Puerto Ricans found ways to participate and show their national pride, often by using familiar colonial strictures--and the United States' claim to democratic values--to their advantage. Drawing on extensive archival research, both on the island and in the United States, Sotomayor uncovers a story of a people struggling to escape the colonial periphery through sport and nationhood yet balancing the benefits and restraints of that same colonial status. The Sovereign Colony describes the surprising negotiations that gave rise to Olympic sovereignty in a colonial nation, a unique case in Latin America, and uses Olympic sports as a window to view the broader issues of nation building and identity, hegemony, postcolonialism, international diplomacy, and Latin American-U.S. relations.