Latino Politics

In this “timely and excellent volume” (NPR) Marie Arana seamlessly weaves these stories with the history of the past millennium to explain three enduring themes that have defined Latin America since pre-Columbian times: the foreign greed for its mineral riches, an ingrained propensity to violence, and the abiding power of religion. Silver, Sword, and Stone combines “learned historical analysis with in-depth reporting and political commentary...[and] an informed and authoritative voice, one that deserves a wide audience” (The New York Times Book Review).

"¿Por qué llegamos a este precipicio?" parecen preguntarse los mexicanos ante el desastre. La respuesta de Macario Schettino se reduce a un nombre: Andrés Manuel López Obrador. El autoritarismo, los atavismos, las ocurrencias y el desprecio por instituciones que han sido creadas a lo largo de décadas, han llevado al país a una ruina no solo económica, sino moral. Schettino aporta datos acerca de la economía del país y de los proyectos alucinantes del presidente.

Historian and journalist Tony Perrottet chronicles the events of the Cuban Revolution and the figures at the center of the guerrilla uprising: Che Guevara, Fidel Castro, and the scrappy band of rebel men and women who followed them.

Written by a prize-winning NPR veteran who spent years covering Latin America, this blend of biography, history, and political reporting details the events that lead to the American invasion of Panama.

On the surface, Arce's story sounds like a how-to manual for achieving the American dream: growing up in an apartment on the outskirts of San Antonio, she worked tirelessly, achieved academic excellence, and landed a coveted job on Wall Street, complete with a six-figure salary. The level of professional and financial success that she achieved was the very definition of the American dream. But in this brave new memoir, Arce digs deep to reveal the physical, financial, and emotional costs of the stunning secret.

Witchcraft has made a comeback in popular culture, especially among feminists. A growing subculture of BIPOC witches, led by Afro-Caribbean immigrants, Indigenous Americans, and other witches of color, is reclaiming their ancestral traditions and contributing their voices to the feminist witchcraft of today.

Según Enrique Krauze, la historia política de México ha sido siempre, en gran medida, una proyección de la biografía de sus gobernantes. Siguiendo el hilo de sus anteriores libros, con La presidencia imperial traza, mediante el penetrante retrato psicológico de nueve presidentes mexicanos (desde Manuel Ávila Camacho hasta Carlos Salinas de Gortari), todos ellos pertenecientes al partido único, el Partido Revolucionario Institucional (PRI), un audaz panorama de la historia de México desde 1940 hasta nuestros días.

In The Team That Changed Baseball: Roberto Clemente and the 1971 Pittsburgh Pirates, veteran baseball writer Bruce Markusen tells the story of one of the most likable and significant teams in the history of professional sports. In addition to the fact that they fielded the first all-minority lineup in major league history, the 1971 Pirates are noteworthy for the team's inspiring individual performances.

When the San José mine collapsed outside of Copiapó, Chile, in August 2010, it trapped thirty-three miners beneath thousands of feet of rock for a record-breaking sixty-nine days. After the disaster, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Héctor Tobar received exclusive access to the miners and their tales, and in Deep Down Dark, he brings them to haunting, visceral life. We learn what it was like to be imprisoned inside a mountain, understand the horror of being slowly consumed by hunger, and experience the awe of working in such a place-underground passages filled with danger.

Regina Martínez was no stranger to retaliation. A journalist out of Mexico’s Gulf Coast state of Veracruz, Regina's stories for the magazine Proceso laid out the corruption and abuse underlying Mexican politics. She was barred from press conferences, and copies of Proceso often disappeared before they made the newsstands. In 2012, shortly after Proceso published an article on corruption and two Veracruz politicians, and the magazine went missing once again, she was bludgeoned to death in her bathroom. The message was clear: No journalist in Mexico was safe.

On January 12, 2010, the deadliest earthquake in the history of the Western Hemisphere struck the nation least prepared to handle one. Jonathan M. Katz, the only full-time American news correspondent in Haiti, was inside his house when it buckled along with hundreds of thousands of others. In this visceral first-hand account, Katz takes readers inside the terror of that day, the devastation visited on ordinary Haitians, and through the monumental--yet misbegotten--rescue effort that followed.

History of Puerto Rico offers a journey into the island’s rich, complex history, exploring the cultural, political, and economic forces that shaped Puerto Rico from its indigenous roots to modern times. Authored by Alex Alicea, this audiobook unveils the evolution of the island, highlighting the resilience and spirit of its people through colonization, slavery, revolts, and struggles for autonomy.

Although populism is ultimately part of democracy, populist movements constitute an increasing challenge to democratic politics. Comparing political trends across different countries, this compelling audiobook debates what the long-term consequences of this challenge could be, as it turns the spotlight on the bewildering effect of populism on today's political and social life.

Native Country of the Heart is the writer and activist Cherrie Moraga's love letter to her "unlettered" mother. It begins with her mother, Elvira Isabel Moraga, who as a child, along with her siblings, was hired out by her own father to pick cotton in California's Imperial Valley. The lives of Cherrie and her mother, and of their people, are woven together in a story of critical reflection and deep personal revelation as Moraga charts her own coming to consciousness alongside the heartbreaking story of her mother's decline.

This edition of Che Guevara's diary of the last year of his life describes Che's efforts to launch a guerrilla insurrection against the military government of Bolivia. It was found in his backpack when he was captured by the Bolivian Army in October 1967.

Hunger of Memory is the story of Mexican-American Richard Rodriguez, who begins his schooling in Sacramento, California, knowing just 50 words of English, and concludes his university studies in the stately quiet of the reading room of the British Museum. Here is the poignant journey of a "minority student" who pays the cost of his social assimilation and academic success with a painful alienation - from his past, his parents, his culture - and so describes the high price of "making it" in middle-class America.

Victor Rios grew up in the ghetto of Oakland, California, in the 1980s and '90s. A former gang member and juvenile delinquent, Rios managed to escape the bleak outcome of many of his friends and earned a PhD at Berkeley and returned to his hometown to study how inner-city young Latino and African American boys develop their sense of self in the midst of crime and intense policing. Punished examines the difficult lives of these young men.

Just Like Us tells the story of four high school students whose parents entered this country illegally from Mexico. All four of the girls have grown up in the United States, and all four want to live the American dream, but only two have documents. As the girls attempt to make it into college, they discover that only the legal pair see a clear path forward. A coming-of-age story about girlhood and friendship, as well as the resilience required to transcend poverty, Just Like Us is also a book about identity.

"The Irish R.M." refers to a series of books by the Anglo-Irish novelists Somerville and Ross. They are set in the turn-of-the-20th-century west of Ireland. The humor in the audiobook is greatly enhanced if the listener has a broad understanding of the history of Ireland's relationship with England, and how Ireland was governed, as well as the Irish country way of life. The show is, however, not political, although caricatures of Irish and British people are used for humorous purposes.

¿A que venimos los latinos a estados unidos? A tener una mejor vida y mejores oportunidades que en nuestros países de origen, solo que a veces no sabemos cómo continuar, cómo dar el siguiente paso.