Latiné Heritage Month 2024

• Clap When You Land
  • Camino and Yahaira Rios are two teenage girls who learn they are half-sisters after their father dies in a plane crash. Camino, living in the Dominican Republic, and Yahaira, living in New York City, navigate the shock of their father’s double life and the complexities of their new relationship. This book explores the themes of identity, grief, family, and healing through newly discovered sisterhood.

Representing: Dominican Republic and New York City

• Seams of Empire: Race and Radicalism in Puerto Rico and the United States
  • This reading is an archive of monumental Puerto Rican diaspora interactions with other racial groups across the world. It establishes and analyzes historical events to explain national, cultural, colonial, and hierarchical cultural relations.

Representing: Puerto Rico

• The House of the Spirits
  • A wild, magical family saga where you get all the tea and chisme of the Trueba family across generations. It blends the supernatural with Chile’s turbulent past.
• Cuentos de Eva Luna
  • This anthology of short stories takes on issues of feminism, magic realism, and politics.  The stories are set in Latin America and its attendant socioeconomic context and feature female protagonists throughout.

Representing: Chilean-American

• How the García Girls Lost Their Accents
  • Tells the story of the García sisters (Carla, Sandra, Yolanda, and Sofía) and their lives after emigrating from the Dominican Republic to the US. Through the interconnected journeys of each sister, the book explores the complexities of family and cultural identity.

Representing: Dominican-American

• The Library of Babel
  • Takes you on a mind-bending trip though an infinite library that contains every possible book, filled with endless knowledge and nonsense. It’s a crazy, philosophical puzzle about the search for meaning and order in a chaotic universe.
• Ficciones
  • Mid-blowing short stories that play with reality, time, and identity. It’s like diving into a literary labyrinth where each tale makes you question everything you thought you knew.

Representing: Argentina

• The House on Mango Streets
  • Shares the story of Esperanza, a young Latina growing up in a Chicago neighborhood, dreaming of a better life beyond her run-down house. Through her vivid stories, she shares her journey of self-discovery and the struggles of her community.

Representing: Mexican-American

• The Alchemist
  • Meet Santigo, a dude who is on a quest for his Personal Legend, meeting mystical characters and learning deep life lessons on the way. Urges you to follow your dreams no matter what.

Representing: Brazil

• Huasipungo
  • A gritty exploration of exploitation and injustice faced by indigenous people in Ecuador during the early 20th century. It’s a stark wake-up call to the harsh realities of class struggle and the brutal impact of colonization on marginalized communities.

Representing: Ecuador

• Martina the Beautiful Cockroach
  • Martina Josefina Catalina Cucaracha uses her charm to find the perfect suitor among some weird candidates. Modern rom-com that proves that love can be found in the most unexpected places such as the bottom of a coffee cup.

Representing: Cuba

• Like Water for Chocolate 
  • This novel chronicles the life of Tita De la Garza, the youngest daughter in her family, as she fights for true love and independence. The novel explores the theme of family tradition as it is set during the time period of the Mexican Revolution, a period of change.

Representing: Mexico

• Terra Nostra
  • An intricate tale weaving together myths, history, and philosophy, plunging you into a labyrinth of time where past, present, and future collide. It’s like a cosmic puzzle that makes you ponder the essence of humanity and the mysteries of existing. 

Representing: Mexico

• The War of End of the World
  • Epic saga set in Brazil where this mystical dude named Antonio starts this huge rebellion that shakes society. It’s about power, belief, and how society deals with change (answer: not in the best way possible.)

• The Time of the Hero
  • Basically, about this group of boys in a military school in Peru, dealing with all kinds of drama, like power struggles and secrets. Shows how messed up things can get when everyone’s trying to prove themselves.

Representing: Peru

• In the Dream House
  • Dives deep into this real-life horror story of being in an abusive queer relationship, mixing memoir with folklore and pop culture to unpack the complexities of trauma and identity.

Representing: Cuban-American

• Amalia
  • Dramatic love story set against the backdrop of political turmoil in 19th-century Argentina. It’s all about forbidden romance, danger, and fighting against a brutal dictatorship.

Representing: Argentina

• 100 Years of Solitude
  • The OG of magical surrealism. A magical saga about the Buendia family, packed with love, tragedy, and bizarre happenings in the family town of Macondo. It’s like a mix of family drama and adventures.
• El Coronel no Tiene Quien le Escriba (No One Writes to the Colonel)
  • The novella follows an elderly colonel, his wife, and their rooster as he awaits his pension payment owed for years. The story deals with government inaction, political revolution, and poverty and its effects.
• Love in the Time of Cholera
  • Florentino passionately falls for Fermina. Despite Florentino a hopeless romantic who gets his heart broken by Fermina, he still stays loyal to her. The novel shows the intricacies of human emotions and societal norms against a vivid backdrop of Latin American culture and history.

Representing: Colombia

• Versos Sencillos
  • Written by a revolutionary Cuban figure, Versos Sencillos aims to capture the beauty of the Cuban experience and moments in his own life that he viewed as important to his development.

Representing: Cuba

• Mexican Gothic
  • A young woman in Mexico begins to investigate her cousin’s claims that her husband is attempting to murder her. Touches on race, colonialism, female independence in Mexico, sexism, and power. 

Representing: Mexican and Canadian

• Tyrant Memory
  • A raw and gripping look at life under a ruthless dictator in Central America, filled with tension and dark satire. It takes you through oppression, fear, making you question power and resistance.

Representing: El Salvador

• Neruda on the Park
  • The Guerrero family faces gentrification in their neighborhood, including demolishing a tenement for luxury condos. The family has different reactions to gentrification including dangerous schemes to stop construction and a distracting romance with the white developer. This book explores themes such as loss, belonging, gentrification, and sacrifices to protect what they love.

Representing: Dominican-American

• The Labyrinth of Solitude
  • A book long essay that looks deeply into Mexican identity and culture, exploring themes of alienation, introspections, and the search for meaning. It challenges you to rethink what it means to belong and to be free.  
• The Collected Poems of Octavio Paz
  • A poetic journey through love, nature, and the human experience, blending surreal imagery with deep philosophy. Every line whispers secrets about life. 

Representing: Mexico

• Becoming Naomi Leon
  • Naomi Soledad Léon Outlaw lives with her little brother, Owen, and her Gram in Lemon Tree California. When her mother Skyla reappears after seven years planning on taking Naomi to live with her boyfriend in Las Vegas, the family makes the decision to seek out the children’s father in Mexico. 

Representing: Mexican/Italian

• I am not your perfect Mexican Daughter
  • Follow Julia who is grappling with news of her sister who slayed a bit too hard and ghosted from existence. The novel explores immigrant cultural identity and its role in familial expectations and dynamics. Julia’s mental health issues are deeply intertwined with other serious themes like trauma, abuse, and poverty.
• Crying in the Bathroom
  • A collection of poems that captures the struggles and triumphs of being a young woman navigating life, love, and identity in today’s world.

Representing: Mexican-American

• Liliana
  • After her mother is killed in Chicago, Liliana is sent to live with her father in Colombia. There she faces many challenges.

Representing: Chicago/Latin American Descent

• The Taste of Sugar
  • Fiction Novel of a young couple who represent the thousands of Puerto Ricans who were lured to migrate to the Sugar Cane fields of Hawaii as indentured servants. The story was centered around the beginning of the Spanish-American War, where the island of Puerto Rico was the fireground between the two world powers.

Representing: Puerto Rico