Latiné Heritage Month 2025

• Mujeres del alma mía/The Soul of a Woman
  • A feminist autobiography of Allende’s life that reflects on modern feminist issues, such as the #MeToo movement, as it relates back to her own life, insisting that love and passion are important regardless of age.

Representing: Chile

• Como agua para chocolate
  • Set in revolutionary Mexico, it follows Tita, whose emotions infuse her cooking with magical effects, acting as an actor to convey strong emotions. Tita is forbidden to marry the man she loves, and is instead forced to serve her mother. This leads her food to either be enchanting, or tormenting to others.

Representing: Mexico

• The Young Lords: A Radical History
  • Using oral histories, archival records, and police records released by her own court battle, Fernández provides a cohesive history of the Young Lords, a radical Puerto Rican group from the 1960s. They are described as the Puerto Rican counterpart to the Black Panthers.

Representing: Dominican Republic and New York City

• Open Veins of Latin America
  • An analysis of the effects of colonization and exploitation on Latin American natural resources. As a result of Europe’s looting and subservience, many Latin American countries remain underdeveloped.

Representing: Uruguay

• 100 Años de Soledad
  • This story follows the Buendía family across 7 generations as they navigate the rise and fall of a fictitious town, Macondo. The fictitious town of Macondo is a rural town in Colombia. Marquez uses magic realism as a narrating technique, making it a captivating read. Through the Buendía lineage, themes such as love, war, incest, and the cycle of life and death are explored. In the end, we see how the reckless mistake made by the members of the Buendía family destroyed Macondo.

Representing: Colombia

• Women with Big Eyes (Mujeres de Ojos Grandes)
  • Compiles short stories that narrate the perspectives of many different women inside the home. It explains the designated role of women within marriage, the family, and patriarchy. It highlights the strength of femininity and the sisterhood between experiences.

Representing: Mexico

• Las Voladoras (The Flying Ones)
  • A collection of 8 short stories that incorporate horror, power within women, violence, all written in an andean gothic style. Ojeda captures the nuances within the experiences of womanhood via intersecting her indigenous culture within it.

Representing: Ecuador

• La Fila India
  • Set in modern-day Mexico, the story follows a young social worker as she navigates working with massacre victims from a remote village in southern Mexico. She later finds out that all the victims were migrants trying to escape the corruption of their countries. As the reader learns more about the massacre, they discover how corruption, racism, and opportunistic exploitation have affected Central American migrants. Ortuño writes in a stream of consciousness that challenges the reader's comprehension, making it an exciting read.

Representing: Mexico

• El Hijo
  • A short story that captures the tragic loss of a father who creates a different reality in his mind, one where his son returns, after he loses his only son. 

Representing: Uruguay

• Solito
  • Memoir about a nine year old boy and his immigration journey across Guatemala and Mexico, in search of the U.S. border. His goal is to reunite with his parents, but amidst the harsh journey he will create an unexpected family amongst the other migrants he is traveling with.

Representing: El Salvador