Mexican American Archives

The Daughter of Doctor Moreau by Silvia Moreno-Garcia [in Booklist]

04 Jan, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Audio, Fiction, Latin American, Latina/o/x, Mexican, Mexican American, Repost

*STARRED REVIEW After voicing Velvet Was the Night (2021), Gisela Chípe returns to read Silvia Moreno-Garcia’s “loosely inspired” adaptation of H.G. Wells’ The Island of Doctor Moreau. In Yaxaktun, a remote late-19th-century ranch in Mexico’s Yucatán Peninsula, French expat Dr. Moreau lives with his 14-year-old daughter,...

They Call Her Fregona: A Border Kid’s Poems by David Bowles [in Shelf Awareness]

06 Nov, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Fiction, Graphic Title/Manga/Manwha, Hapa/Mixed-race, Latina/o/x, Mexican American, Middle Grade Readers, Poetry, Repost, Verse Novel/Nonfiction, Young Adult Readers

David Bowles continues his eloquent, autobiographical narration of the "border kid" experience in They Call Her Fregona, a captivating novel-in-verse companion to his 2019 Pura Belpré Honor book, They Call Me Güero. Joanna Padilla, the titular fregona, is a "tough girl," first introduced in Güero. After Joanna saved Güero from...

Booklist Backlist: Diverse Debut Story Collections [in Booklist]

21 Mar, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Black/African American, Cambodian American, Canadian, Canadian Asian Pacific American, Chinese American, Fiction, Indian American, Korean American, Laotian American, Latina/o/x, Lists, Mexican American, Pakistani American, Repost, Short Stories, South Asian American, Southeast Asian American

Short-story collections can be uneven, but readers will be consistently impressed by these extraordinary, resonant, and exhilarating debuts by a dozen diverse writers. Afterparties. By Anthony Veasna So. 2021. Ecco. So’s nine electrifying stories magnificently create an interconnected Cambodian American community. The most autobiographical is “Human Development,” in...

Illegal: A Disappeared Novel by Francisco X. Stork [in School Library Journal]

17 Mar, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Audio, Fiction, Latina/o/x, Mexican, Mexican American, Repost, Young Adult Readers

Narrators Roxana Ortega and Christian Barillas resume the high-octane energy of the Zapata siblings introduced in Francisco X. Stork’s heart-thumping Disappeared. Separated after surviving the treacherous crossing over the U.S. border, former journalist Sara remains imprisoned in the Fort Stockton Detention Center, while teen Emiliano...

Of Women and Salt by Gabriela Garcia [in Booklist]

04 Mar, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Cuban, Cuban American, Fiction, Latina/o/x, Mexican, Mexican American, Repost

Gabriela Garcia turns her MFA thesis for Purdue University (where she studied with the revered Roxane Gay) into her widely buzzed first novel. Presented in 12 chapters that read more like interlinked stories, Garcia channels her Miami-based Cuban-Mexican American heritage into five generations of a...

The Resurrection of Fulgencio Ramirez by Rudy Ruiz [in Booklist]

25 Nov, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Audio, Fiction, Latina/o/x, Mexican, Mexican American, Repost

Some happy endings are inevitable ...

Mexican Gothic by Silvia Moreno-Garcia [in Shelf Awareness]

03 Jul, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Canadian, Fiction, Latin American, Latina/o/x, Mexican, Mexican American, Repost

Mexican Canadian Silvia Moreno-Garcia is an award-winning, genre-hopping literary chameleon, having successfully written fantasy, fairy tales, vampiric adventure, noir, short stories. Clearly channeling her inner H.P. Lovecraft in Mexican Gothic, she's created her own varietal of irresistible 1950s fungal horror. Socialite Noemí is summoned home early...

Lost Children Archive by Valeria Luiselli [in Booklist]

02 Jan, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Audio, Fiction, Latina/o/x, Mexican, Mexican American, Repost

*STARRED REVIEW Valeria Luiselli’s spectacular latest – her first fiction in English – also marks her co-narrator debut. The Mexican-born Luiselli is the dominant voice here; her accent slight, her enunciation careful. Only her collaboration could have enabled the affecting print-to-audio metamorphosis, choosing how photos, drawings,...

Manuelito by Elisa Amado, illustrated by Abraham Urias [in Booklist]

08 Jul, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Canadian, Children/Picture Books, Fiction, Graphic Title/Manga/Manwha, Latin American, Latina/o/x, Mexican, Mexican American, Middle Grade Readers, Repost, Young Adult Readers

Guatemalan-born Canadian author Elisa Amado (What Are You Doing? 2011) “has known many people whose lives have been disrupted, if not destroyed, by the conflicts that have occurred [in Guatemala] since the 1950s,” her author’s bio reveals. That violence continues in the Northern Triangle of Central America...

The House of the Pain of Others: Chronicle of a Small Genocide by Julián Herbert, translated by Christina MacSweeney [in Booklist]

26 Mar, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Chinese, Latin American, Latina/o/x, Memoir, Mexican, Mexican American, Nonfiction, Repost, Translation

The “largest mass slaughter of Asians on the American continent” claimed the lives of over 300 Chinese immigrants in May 1911 in Torreón, in the Mexican state of Coahuila. Despite its magnitude, the massacre remains a “buried episode,” obscured by substantial erroneous coverage, that writer,...

Undocumented: A Worker’s Fight by Duncan Tonatiuh [in Booklist]

19 Sep, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Children/Picture Books, Fiction, Graphic Title/Manga/Manwha, Latin American, Latina/o/x, Mexican, Mexican American, Repost

*STARRED REVIEW Surviving a life-threatening journey from Mexico to a “strange city” in the U.S., Juan joins his uncle and three cousins. He owes his low-wage, 12-hours-a-day, 7-days-a-week restaurant job to a boss who insists he’s “doing [Juan] a favor because [he] had no papers.” Although he’s...

Count Me In! A Parade of Mexican Folk Art Numbers in English and Spanish by Cynthia Weill, illustrated with ceramics by the Aguilar Sisters: Guillermina, Josefina, Irene, and Concepción

15 Dec, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Children/Picture Books, Fiction, Latin American, Latina/o/x, Mexican, Mexican American, Nonethnic-specific

Come one, come all: the Guelaguetza festival is about to begin. Guelaguetza means ‘to share’ in the Zapotec language, and every July, the people of Oaxaca, Mexico gather to ‘guelaguetza’ their dancing, singing, and music. One man with a balloon announces the welcoming parade has...

By the Lake of Sleeping Children: The Secret Life of the Mexican Border by Luis Alberto Urrea, photographs by John Lueders-Booth

31 Jan, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Hapa/Mixed-race, Latina/o/x, Memoir, Mexican, Mexican American, Nonfiction

Once I opened this second volume in Luis Alberto Urrea's Border Trilogy, I simply couldn't stop. So here's the best thing I can say about Lake after reading his first border title, Across the Wire: Lake is more of the same ...

Across the Wire: Life and Hard Times on the Mexican Border by Luis Alberto Urrea, photographs by John Lueders-Booth

27 Jan, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Hapa/Mixed-race, Latina/o/x, Memoir, Mexican, Mexican American, Nonfiction

Thanks to a sudden snowstorm and ensuing power outage, I had every excuse to strap on my headband flashlight and read the first of Luis Alberto Urrea's Border Trilogy without pause. Given the sheer gawk-factor of these pages, any excuses were negligible: This is definitely...

BookDragon Mexican American