Positively Ellinwood Street: Hispanic Heritage Month

Showing posts with label Hispanic Heritage Month. Show all posts

Tuesday, September 10, 2013

So Many Great Hispanic Authors, So Little Time!

To celebrate Hispanic American Heritage Month, which runs from September 15th through October 15th, the library is hosting Hispanic Heritage Music Night on October 7th and a special Drop in Craft on October 14th. Both of these are sure to be fun--you can find additional information on the programs on our calendar of events here--but I'll be celebrating with a good novel.

But what to choose! Although I read In the Time of the Butterflies by Julia Alvarez several years ago, her novel based on the lives of the Dominican Mirabal sisters merits a second read: murdered in 1960 for participating in the rebellion against despot Rafael Trujillo, Alvarez brings the sisters to life again in this novel that takes us from their convent-educated girlhood in the Dominican Republic through their harrowing final days.

Then there's Music of the Mill by Luis J. Rodriguez, long on my radar and highly recommended by a couple of trusted readers. Set in the Los Angeles barrios it spans 60 years in the lives of the Salcido family, two generations of which work in a mill, including a second-generation son who stands up to those in power at the mill.

I think what I most want to read, though, is The House on Mango Street, published in 1984 and already considered a classic coming of age story. The author, Sandra Cisneros, based the novel on her experiences growing up in Chicago, one of seven children in a family that moved back and forth between Chicago and Mexico. The heroine of the novel is Esperanza Cordero. Here's Esperanza on the subject of her great-grandmother, for whom she is named:

She looked out the window her whole life, the way so many women sit their sadness on an elbow. I wonder if she made the best with what she got or was she sorry because she couldn’t be all the things she wanted to be. Esperanza. I have inherited her name, but I don’t want to inherit her place by the window.

Below is a list of other fiction titles by Hispanic American authors, all of which the library owns. What are your recommendations or favorites?

Tuesday, September 18, 2012

How Junot Díaz Almost Made Me Miss My Bus Stop

Some authors are so good that I want to give them my full attention, which means not reading them on the bus. Sometimes I fail at this.

Back in April, I was on the bus on my way to the library when I saw that my magazine had the latest story by Junot Díaz. I told myself to save if for when I got home, so I could savor it. Then I told myself I would just read a few paragraphs. And then I almost missed my bus stop, hustling down the aisle and out the door, magazine in hand, before the bus pulled away.

The story was "Miss Lora," and like the best stories in his 1996 short story collection, Drown, it is electric, crackling with energy that seems to rise off the page. Here's a passage that practically dares you to stop reading:

"You were at the age where you could fall in love with a girl over an expression, a gesture. That's what happened with your girlfriend Paloma--she stooped to pick up her purse, and your heart flew out of you. That's what happened with Miss Lora, too."

Although Díaz won the Pulitzer Prize for his novel, The Brief, Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, there are fans of his stories who swear he's at his finest in the shorter form. Do the words Pulitzer Prize-winner put fear in your heart? Fear not: his stories are as accessible as they are dazzling, their immediacy heightened by Díaz's exuberant use of language.

Although his stories are frequently irreverent in tone, they often traverse dark and emotionally complex terrain. In "The Pura Princple," Yunior, who narrates most of the stories and who previously appeared in Drown and Oscar Wao, recounts his volatile brother's final months and his marriage to Pura, whom his mother hates. "She'd never been big on church before," Yunior says of his mother, "but as soon as we landed on cancer planet she went so over-the-top Jesucristo that I think she would have nailed herself to a cross if she'd had one handy." In "Alma," Yunior tells of his first love, "one of those Sonic Youth, comic-book-reading alernatinas," and his foolishness. When Alma reads his journal, which recounts an infidelity, she confronts him, to which he replies with "a smile your dissembling face will remember until the day you die: 'Baby . . . this is part of my novel.'"

All the stories above and more are included in Díaz's latest collection, This Is How You Lose Her. I checked my copy out on September 14th, just one day before the start of National Hispanic Heritage Month, which runs through October 15th. It's a time to celebrate the contributions of American citizens of Spanish, Mexican, Caribbean, and Central and South American descent. I'll be celebrating with Díaz's latest stories, grateful to him and to the grade school librarian he spoke of at his recent Chicago appearance, a woman who didn't speak any Spanish but who empathized with the young boy, only recently arrived from the Dominican Republic, and said the magic words: "Have some books."

Who are your favorite Hispanic American writers? And feel free to share any suggestions on how to celebrate Hispanic American Heritage Month.

Friday, September 16, 2011

Heavy Books and Hispanic Heritage Month

If you took a college literature class in the 1960s or later, you likely remember The Norton Anthology of English Literature. If not, check with your back and arms, which may have more painful memories of the book. Weighing in at 4.3 pounds, the 1st volume of the 2006 edition is over 3,000 pages and currently weighing down the backpack of a college student near you.

That said, there's more to the Norton Anthology than English literature these days. Last fall, the series published The Norton Anthology of Latino Literature, a work that embodies the theme of National Hispanic Heritage Month this year: “Many Backgrounds, Many Stories . . . One American Spirit.”

In the words of Booklist writer Donna Seaman, the editors "have gathered a glorious chorus of 201 voices spanning five centuries and diverse traditions." Among those voices are contemporary writers like Julia Alvarez and Junot Diaz as well as many other well-known and lesser-known Chicano, Cuban-American, Puerto-Rican, and Dominican-American writers past and present. Fiction, poems, essays, letters, drama and diaries all have a place in this ambitious volume, which illuminates, educates and at its best, enchants.

National Hispanic Heritage Month, which runs from September 15th to October 15th, began in 1968 with Hispanic Heritage Week and was expanded to a month in 1988. It's a time to celebrate the contributions of American citizens of Spanish, Mexican, Caribbean, and Central and South American descent.

To learn more about National Hispanic Heritage Month visit this website hosted by the Library of Congress, where you'll find audio and video clips of Hispanic veterans and much more.

To experience Spanish dance live here at the library, sign up for Spain's Dancing Rhythms performed by Chicago's own Ensemble Español on Sunday, September 25th at 2 p.m. Register online here or at the 1st floor information desk.

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