This month, Hispanic Outlook is featuring books from University of California Press, University of Chicago Press, University Press of Kentucky and University of New Mexico Press and several bilingual K-12 books that explore Hispanic culture.
K-12
“DALIA’S WONDROUS HAIR / EL CABELLO MARAVILLOSO DE DALIA”
by Laura Lacámara
Amazon Recommended Grade Level: 1 – 2
Publisher: Piñata Books
ISBN-13: 978-1558857896
Teacher’s Guide: https://artepublicopress.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/Dalias-Wondrous-Hair-activity-guide.pdf
While Dalia slept safely wrapped in her mother’s silken sheets, her hair grew and grew. By the time the rooster crowed, her hair had “grown straight up to the sky, tall and thick as a Cuban royal palm tree.” As Dalia looked at the flowers blooming in the garden, an idea sprouted inside her. She decorated her hair with leaves and mud. While Dalia slept, something stirred and unfolded. When the rooster crowed, the girl ran outside and everyone watched in awe as she unwrapped her towering hair. Could it be? Is Dalia a . . . blossoming butterfly tree?!?
“ESTRELLITA SE DESPIDE DE SU ISLA / ESTRELLITA SAYS GOOD-BYE TO HER ISLAND”
by Samuel Caraballo
Amazon Recommended Grade Level: Kindergarten – 4
Publisher: Piñata Books
ISBN-13: 978-1558853386
Teacher’s Guide: https://artepublicopress.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/TG-Estrellita-Says-Goodbye-to-Her-Island.pdf
This lyrical book is Estrellita’s farewell song to her island home. The gentle words paint a picture of her beloved environment in vivid strokes, filling the reader’s mind with images of, in Estrellita’s words, the “little island / darling little piece of my heart!” Her tribute is framed by the window of an airplane as it whisks her away from her beloved world that will forever be framed in the window of her mind’s eye. Estrellita’s ode gives the readers a peek at her world, such as the rooster calling to her and the people that populate her lovely countryside.
“SOFI AND THE MAGIC, MUSICAL MURAL / SOFI Y EL MÁGICO MURAL MUSICAL”
by Raquel M. Ortiz
Amazon Recommended Grade Level: 1 – 2
Publisher: Arte Publico Press
ISBN-13: 978-1558858039
Teacher’s Guide: https://artepublicopress.com/teacher-guides-sofi-and-the-magic-musical-mural-sofi-y-el-magico-mural-musical/
When Sofi walks through her barrio to the store, she always passes a huge mural with images from Puerto Rico: musicians, dancers, tropical flowers and—her least favorite—a vejigante, a character from carnival that wears a scary mask. One day, she stops in front of the mural, and it looks like one of the dancers is inviting her to be his partner. Suddenly, she’s in Old San Juan, surrounded by dancers and musicians playing bongos, tambourines and güiros. Then the vejigante spins her around! This story about an imaginative girl and a magical mural explores Puerto Rico’s cultural traditions.
“THE RUNAWAY PIGGY / EL COCHINITO FUGITIVO”
by James Luna
Amazon Recommended Grade Level: Preschool – 2
Publisher: Piñata Books
ISBN-13: 978-1558855861
Teacher’s Guide: https://artepublicopress.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/TG-Runaway-Piggy-preschool-first-grade.pdf
Martha’s Panadería holds tray after tray of hot Mexican sweet bread: conchas, orejas, cuernitos, empanadas and cochinitos. But one piggy cookie leaps off the baking tray and takes the reader on a mad dash through the barrio. Each person the piggy encounters is greeted by the refrain: “Chase me! Chase me down the street! But this is one piggy you won’t get to eat! I ran away from the others and I’ll run away from you!” The cochinito fugitivo avoids being eaten…until he meets a crafty little girl named Rosa! This book includes a recipe for Mexican gingerbread pig cookies.
Higher Education
“MY MUSIC IS MY FLAG: PUERTO RICAN MUSICIANS AND THEIR NEW YORK COMMUNITIES, 1917-1940”
by Ruth Glasser
Publisher: University of California Press
ISBN-13: 978-0520208902
Puerto Rican music in New York is given center stage in Ruth Glasser’s original and lucid study. Exploring the relationship between the social history and forms of cultural expression of Puerto Ricans, she focuses specifically on the years between the two world wars. Her material integrates the experiences of the mostly working-class Puerto Rican musicians who struggled to make a living during this period with those of their compatriots and also the other ethnic groups with whom they shared the cultural landscape. Glasser demonstrates the complexities of cultural nationalism and cultural authenticity within the very practical realm of commercial music.
“THE MAGICAL STATE: NATURE, MONEY, AND MODERNITY IN VENEZUELA”
by Fernando Coronil
Publisher: University of Chicago Press ISBN-13: 978-0226116013
In 1935, after the death of dictator General Juan Vicente Gómez, Venezuela consolidated its position as the world’s major oil exporter and began establishing what today is South America’s longest-lasting democratic regime. Successive presidents appeared as transcendent figures who could magically transform Venezuela into a modern nation. Yet now the state must struggle to appease its foreign creditors, counter a declining economy and contain a discontented citizenry. In critical dialogue with contemporary social theory, Fernando Coronil examines key transformations in Venezuela’s polity, culture and economy, recasting theories of development and highlighting the relevance of these processes for other postcolonial nations.
“ROAD OF STARS TO SANTIAGO”
by Edward F. Stanton
Publisher: University Press of Kentucky
ISBN-13: 978-0813118710
In “Road Of Stars To Santiago,” Edward F. Stanton recounts his journey on the Camino de Santiago. “Most of the book has to do with my own trials and joys on the Road: the physical struggle to walk about twenty miles a day in the heat or rain, to find a place to eat and sleep; with the psychological changes that take place when one leaves home, family and routine; with the contradictions inherent to a pilgrimage in the late twentieth century; with experiences that ranged from the spiritual to the picaresque; with the people I met on the way.”
“REVOLUTIONARY MASCULINITY AND RACIAL INEQUALITY: GENDERING WAR AND POLITICS IN CUBA”
by Bonnie A. Lucero
Publisher: University of New Mexico Press
ISBN-13: 978-0826360090
One of the most paradoxical aspects of Cuban history is the coexistence of national myths of racial harmony with lived experiences of racial inequality. Here a historian addresses this issue by examining the ways soldiers and politicians coded their discussions of race in ideas of masculinity during Cuba’s transition from colony to republic. Cuban insurgents, Bonnie A. Lucero shows, rarely mentioned race, often expressing their attitudes toward racial hierarchy through gendered language—revolutionary masculinity. By examining the relationship between historical experiences of race and discourses of masculinity, Lucero advances understandings about how racial exclusion functioned in a supposedly raceless society.
