Hispanic Heritage Month- Nonfiction Recommendations

"Hispanic Heritage Month is a holiday in the United States that celebrates Hispanic culture. It gives Latin Americans and their families a special time to remember their roots, and it is also a chance for all Americans to recognize the contributions of Latin Americans."--Provided by publisher.

"Trip. My parents started using that word about a year ago--'one day, you'll take a trip to be with us. Like an adventure.' Javier's adventure is a three-thousand-mile journey from his small town in El Salvador, through Guatemala and Mexico, and across the U.S. border. He will leave behind his beloved aunt and grandparents to reunite with a mother who left four years ago and a father he barely remembers. Traveling alone except for a group of strangers...

Sharing the personal struggles and successes of immigrants, poets, soldiers, and many others, this companion to the PBS miniseries explores the lives of Latino American men and women over a 500-year-span who have made an impact on history.

"Elio Morillo's life is abruptly spun out of orbit when economic collapse and personal circumstances compel his mother to flee Ecuador for the United States in search of a better future for her son. His itinerant childhood sets into motion a migration that will ultimately carry Elio to the farthest expanse of human endeavor: space. Overcoming a history of systemic adversity and inequality in public education, Elio forged ahead on a journey as indebted...

Published in association with the Smithsonian Institution and the Molina Family Latino Gallery, a celebration of 30 of history's most influential Latinas and Latinos shares the uplifting stories of subjects ranging from Pura Belpre and Cesar Chavez to Jennifer Lopez and Sonia Sotomayor.

Con su publicación original en tapa dura, Our Migrant Souls abrió nuevos caminos con su poderoso examen de las fuerzas sociales y políticas que moldean la identidad latina. Ahora en su primera traducción completa, Nuestras almas migrantes lleva el análisis definitivo y sin precedentes de Héctor Tobar sobre el significado de lo "latino" a los lectores de habla hispana, con la promesa de tender puentes entre generaciones y traspasar fronteras,...

From bestselling author Reyna Grande--whose remarkable memoir The Distance Between Us has become required reading in schools across the country--comes an inspiring account of one woman's quest to find her place in America as a first-generation Latina university student and aspiring writer determined to build a new life for her family one fearless word at a time. When Reyna Grande was nine years old, she walked across the US-Mexico border in search...

"In 1961, at the height of the Cold War, the United States severed diplomatic relations with Cuba, where a momentous revolution had taken power three years earlier. For more than half a century, the stand-off continued--through the tenure of ten American presidents and the fifty-year rule of Fidel Castro. His death in 2016, and the retirement of his brother and successor Raúl Castro in 2021, have spurred questions about the country's future. Meanwhile,...

"Because of our shared English language, as well as the celebrated origin tales of the Mayflower and the rebellion of the British colonies, the United States has prized its Anglo heritage above all others. However, as Carrie Gibson explains with great depth and clarity in El Norte, the nation has much older Spanish roots--ones that have long been unacknowledged or marginalized. The Hispanic past of the United States predates the arrival of the Pilgrims...

"From former White House aide to President Obama and Harvard graduate, Alejandra Campoverdi, comes a riveting and unflinching memoir on navigating social mobility as a first gen Latina, offering a broad examination of the unacknowledged emotional tolls of being a trailblazer. To be a First and Only in America is a delicate balancing act of surviving where you come from while acting like you belong where you're going. Alejandra Campoverdi has been...