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Xbox videogamer cholo cyberpunks. Infants who read before they talk. Vatos locos, romancing abuelos, border crossers and border smugglers, transvestites, drug kingpins, Latina motorbike riders, philosophically musing tweens, and so much more. The stories in this dynamic bilingual prose-art collection touch on the universals of romance, family, migration and expulsion, and everyday life in all its zany configurations. Each glimpse into lives at every stage-from newborns and children to teens, young adults, and the elderly-further submerges readers in psychological ups and downs. In a world filled with racism, police brutality, poverty, and tensions between haves and have-nots, these flashes of fictional insight bring gleaming clarity to life lived where all sorts of borders meet and shift. Frederick Luis Aldama and graphic artists from Mapache Studios and illustrator Jaime Hernandez give shape to ugly truths in the most honest way, creating new perceptions, thoughts, and feelings about life in the borderlands of the Americas. Each bilingual prose-art fictional snapshot offers an unsentimentally complex glimpse into what it means to exist at the margins of society today. These unflinching and often brutal fictions crisscross spiritual, emotional, and physical borders as they give voice to all those whom society chooses not to see.
(source: Nielsen Book Data)

"This is a collection of 100 poems in both English and Spanish inspired by the Spanish poet Federico García Lorca"--Provided by publisher.

In this collection, which the poet calls his "rebirth in the search for home, " Ray Gonzalez expresses the gentle, humble intelligence that has made him a leading voice in Latino letters. He shares with the reader the voice of a soul searcher who has passed through middle age and still vibrates with passion for the world. Gonzalez shows his profound respect for other people, species, places, elements, and histories. Illusions to religious imagery knock against those of the natural world--feathers and rocks--creating a complex tableau of objects and feelings. Employing the image-driven approach for which he is renowned, in this collection Gonzalez is taut, using poetics that are fully formed. Even as the poems weave together highly intellectual, refined subject matter, the language remains accessible. The book is divided into three parts. The first section offers Gonzalez's most personal work yet, meditating on aging, forgetting, and the reader. The next section is more outward looking, as Gonzalez takes on great artists from both Old World and New World traditions. Finally, in the last section, Gonzalez opens himself up, reflecting in very personal ways on the everyday, such as a return from a hospital stay or a visit to the doctor. Soul Over Lightning weaves together elements of Native American and Chicano/a narratives, inspired by the landscape of the desert Southwest and the experience of living on the border. It offers a new supernarrative that lifts spirits and yet remains grounded in a timeless search for home and truth.
(source: Nielsen Book Data)

"The stereotype spells death to the imagination by shrinking all possibilities to one. Generalizations encourage us to stop considering what can be." --from the Introduction The sheer number of different ethnic groups and cultures in the United States makes it tempting to classify them according to broad stereotypes, ignoring their unique and changing identities. Because of their growing diversity within the United States, Latinas and Latinos face this problem in their everyday lives. With cultural roots in Mexico, Puerto Rico, Cuba, the Dominican Republic, or a variety of other locales, Hispanic-origin people in the United States are too often consigned to a single category. With this book Blas Falconer and Lorraine M. Lopez set out to change this. "The Other Latin@" is a diverse collection of essays written by some of the best emerging and established contemporary writers of Latin origin to help answer the question: How can we treat U.S. Latina and Latino literature as a definable whole while acknowledging the many shifting identities within their cultures? By telling their own stories, these authors illuminate the richness of their cultural backgrounds while adding a unique perspective to Latina and Latino literature. This book sheds light on the dangers of abandoning identity by accepting cultural stereotypes and ignoring diversity within diversity. These contributors caution against judging literature based on the race of the author and lament the use of the term Hispanic to erase individuality. Honestly addressing difficult issues, this book will greatly contribute to a better understanding of Latina and Latino literature and identity.
(source: Nielsen Book Data)

How does a contemporary woman with a career as a poet, professor, and editor experience motherhood with one small child, another soon to be born, and her own mother suddenly diagnosed with a brain tumor and Alzheimer's? The dichotomy between life as a mother and life as an artist and professional is a major theme in modern literature because often the two seem irreconcilable. In "Bring Down the Little Birds, " Carmen Gimenez Smith faces this seeming irreconcilability head-on, offering a powerful and necessary lyric memoir to shed light on the difficulties--and joys--of being a mother juggling work, art, raising children, pregnancy, and being a daughter to an ailing mother, and, perhaps most important, offering a rigorous and intensely imaginative contemplation on the concept of motherhood as such. Writing in fragmented yet coherent sections, the author shares with us her interior monologue, affording the reader a uniquely honest, insightful, and deeply personal glimpse into a woman's first and second journeys into motherhood. Gimenez Smith begins "Bring Down the Little Birds "by detailing the relationship with her own mother, from whom her own concept of motherhood originated, a conception the author continually reevaluates and questions over the course of the book. Combining fragments of thought, daydreams, entries from notebooks both real and imaginary, and real-life experiences, Gimenez Smith interrogates everything involved in becoming and being a mother for both the first and second time, from wondering what her children will one day know about her own "secret life" to meditations on the physical effects of pregnancy as well as the myths, the nostalgia, and the glorification of motherhood. While Gimenez Smith incorporates universal experiences of motherhood that other authors have detailed throughout literature, what separates her book from these many others is that her reflections are captured in a style that establishes an intimacy and immediacy between author and reader through which we come to know the secret life of a mother and are made to question our own conception of what motherhood really means.
(source: Nielsen Book Data)

• Poetry
• Fiction
• Nonfiction.

Since 1994, the Camino del Sol series has been one of the premier vehicles for Latina/o literary voices. Launched under the auspices of Chicana/o luminary Ray Gonzalez, it quickly established itself in both the Latina/o community and the publishing world as it garnered awards for its outstanding writing. Featuring both established writers and first-time authors, Camino del Sol has published poetry and prose that convey something about the Latina/o experience--works that tap into universal truths through a distinct cultural lens. This volume celebrates fifteen years of books by bringing together some of the series' best work, such as poetry from Francisco X. Alarcon, fiction from Christine Granados, and nonfiction from Luis Alberto Urrea. These voices echo the entire spectrum of Latina/o writing, from Chicana/o to Puerto Rican to Brazilian-American, and take in themes ranging from migration to gender. Awards bestowed upon Camino del Sol titles include the PEN/Beyond Margins Award to Richard Blanco's "Directions to the Beach of the Dead"; Before Columbus Foundation American Book Awards to Diana Garcia's "When Living Was a Labor Camp" and Luis Alberto Urrea's "Nobody's Son"; International Latino Book Awards to Pat Mora's "Adobe Odes" and Kathleen Alcala's "The Desert Remembers My Name"; the Premio Aztlan literary prize to Sergio Troncoso's "The Last Tortilla"; and the PEN Oakland-Josephine Miles National Literary Award to Kathleen de Azevedo's "Samba Dreamers." All of these works are represented in this outstanding collection. In a short span of time, Camino del Sol has cultivated an admirable and sizeable list of distinguished contemporary authors--and even garnered the first National Book Critics Circle Award for a Chicana/o for Juan Felipe Herrera's "Half of the World in Light." "Camino del Sol: Fifteen Years of Latina and Latino Writing" is a benchmark for the series and a wonderful introduction to the world of Latina/o literature.
(source: Nielsen Book Data)

In 2004 twenty-eight women and young girls were murdered in Ciudad Juarez and the surrounding areas. The tragedy escalated to fifty-eight murders in 2006, then again to eighty-six in 2008, and current estimates top four hundred deaths. Now poet Valerie Martinez offers a poetic exploration of these events, pushing boundaries--stylistically and artistically--with vivid poems that contextualize femicide. Martinez departs from traditional narrative to reveal the hidden effects and outcomes of the horrific and heart-wrenching cases of femicide. These poems--lyric fragments and prose passages that form a collage--have an intricate relation to one another, creating a complex literary quilt that feels like it can be read from the beginning, the end, or anywhere in between. Martinez is personally invested in the topic, evoking the loss of her sister, and "Each and Her" emerges as a biography of sorts and a compelling homage to all those who have suffered. Other authors may elaborate on or investigate this topic, but Martinez humanizes it by including names, quotations, realistic details, and stark imagery. The women of Juarez, like other women around the world, are ravaged by inequality, discontinuity, politics, and economic plagues that contribute to gender violence. Martinez offers us a poignant and alarming glance into another world with these never-before-told stories. Her refreshing and explosive voice will keep readers transfixed and intrigued about these events and emotions--removed from us and yet so close to the heart.
(source: Nielsen Book Data)

"Duality" is at the center of Flamenco Hips and Red Mud Feet, a striking collection of poems both intimate and grand. The poet, Dixie Salazar, has spent a lifetime forging her own identity out of two cultures: "On one side was my father's world: Spanish speaking from las montanas. On the other side was my mother's world: a deep Southern drawl wafting from the magnolia and chinaberry trees." As her poems reveal, she is a product of both cultures but not completely at home in either one. In the two sections of the book--"Inside" and "Outside"--parallelism and symmetry interact with themes both public and private. Flamenco Hips and Red Mud Feet presents thirty-nine poems in free verse and traditional poetic forms, especially the sonnet and adaptations of the sonnet. The sonnet--usually consisting of the octet (eight lines) that sets up the main idea of the poem and the sestet (six lines) that resolves, answers or completes the poem--is a natural form for a poet whose identity is divided. Double sonnets and "double-linked sonnets doubled" reflect the duality the poet feels inside her skin. And the poems written to and for a "lost sister" reinforce the theme. Throughout this provocative book, Salazar navigates the alienation of her cultural in-between-ness. By the end, she appears to become more comfortable with her status of "outsider, " deciding that she doesn't need to give in to pressures to pick a side or to accept others' ideas of where her own "borders" begin or end.
(source: Nielsen Book Data)

The remarkable and wholly insightful poems collected here bounce the reader through a world where words are not bricks but trampolines--springy, un-static-y things. Feisty, spirited, serious and comic, these poems address a wild range of subjects with an equally wild range of tones. As readers, we find ourselves holding on with white knuckles, but we always want to turn the page. The most modern of roller coasters ride on soft rubber tires and slithery smooth tracks. Gone are the days of jouncing along on steel wheels, smacking over hard metal joints. So it is with this book. Although readers are hurtled through time, space, and a universe of emotions, the ride is seductively smooth--and the transitions surprisingly seamless. In the prologue, our attention bends to bridges, free-tail bats, soldiers, and peacemakers. These poems prepare us to watch for hopeful signs in the work ahead. In the first section, the spiritual seems to flow into the geopolitical--not in a hammer-you-over-the-head kind of way but in a blood-through-the-heart sort of way. In the second section, the spiritual mingles with the organic in a more personal way. By the end of the ride, we are aware that we have taken a trip with an intellectually fearless bushwhacker leading the way. Anyone who has ever contemplated The Simpsons, sex-offender registries, desert internment camps, bats in flight, wars that never end, "la virgen, " grasshoppers, Google, or the cosmos will find a kindred spirit in Maria Melendez and a warm welcome in her work.
(source: Nielsen Book Data)

For nearly four decades, Juan Felipe Herrera has documented his experience as a Chicano in the United States and Latin America through stunning, memorable poetry that is both personal and universal in its impact, themes, and approach. Often political, never fainthearted, his career has been marked by tremendous virtuosity and a unique sensibility for uncovering the unknown and the unexpected. Through a variety of stages and transformations, Herrera has evolved more than almost any other Chicano poet, always re-inventing himself into a more mature and seasoned voice. Now, in this unprecedented collection, we encounter the trajectory of this highly innovative and original writer, bringing the full scope of his singular vision into view. Beginning with early material from A Certain Man and moving through thirteen of his collections into new, previously unpublished work, this assemblage also includes an audio CD of the author reading twenty-four selected poems aloud. Serious scholars and readers alike will now have available to them a representative set of glimpses into his production as well as his origins and personal development. The ultimate value of bringing together such a collection, however, is that it will allow us to better understand and appreciate the complexity of what this major American poet is all about.
(source: Nielsen Book Data)

My parents always told me I was Mexican. I was Mexican because they were Mexican. This was sometimes modified to "Mexican American, " since I was born in California, and thus automatically a U.S. citizen. But, my parents said, this, too, was once part of Mexico. My father would say this with a sweeping gesture, taking in the smog, the beautiful mountains, the cars and houses and fast-food franchises. When he made that gesture, all was cleared away in my mind's eye to leave the hazy impression of a better place. We were here when the white people came, the Spaniards, then the Americans. And we will be here when they go away, he would say, and it will be part of Mexico again. Thus begins a lyrical and entirely absorbing collection of personal essays by esteemed Chicana writer and gifted storyteller Kathleen Alcal . Loosely linked by an exploration of the many meanings of "family, " these essays move in a broad arc from the stories and experiences of those close to her to those whom she wonders about, like Andrea Yates, a mother who drowned her children. In the process of digging and sifting, she is frequently surprised by what she unearths. Her family, she discovers, were Jewish refugees from the Spanish Inquisition who took on the trappings of Catholicism in order to survive. Although the essays are in many ways personal, they are also universal. When she examines her family history, she is encouraging us to inspect our own families, too. When she investigates a family secret, she is supporting our own search for meaning. And when she writes that being separated from our indigenous culture is "a form of illiteracy, " we know exactly what she means. After reading these essays, we find thatwe have discovered not only why Kathleen Alcal is a writer but also why we appreciate her so much. She helps us to find ourselves.
(source: Nielsen Book Data)