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Latino Voices

Alvarez, Julia. In the Name of Salomé (En el nombre de Salomé)

(2000) In a novel that spans more than one hundred years in Caribbean history, Camila Henrfquez Ureña struggles to come to terms with the legacy of her renowned mother, Salomé Ureña, the revered poet laureate of the Dominican Republic, who died when Camila was three.

Call number: Fiction Alvarez

Björkquist, Elena Díaz. Water from the Moon: A Collection of Stories for Young Adults

(2002) Stories told in the voices of Mexican-American youth growing up in a small copper mining town in Arizona. Underlying all the stories is the knowledge that the expanding copper mine will one day destroy the town.

Call number: Fiction Bjorkquist

Boullosa, Carmen. Leaving Tabasco

(2001) Presents the coming-of-age story of Delmira, whose Mexican village is home to visions of her grandmother floating above her bed, stones turning into water, and her elderly serving-woman's stigmata, but as Delmira reaches adulthood she makes a choice that forces her to leave home forever.

Call number: Fiction Boullosa

Cisneros, Sandra. Caramelo

(2002) During her family's annual car trip from Chicago to Mexico City, Lala Reyes listens to stories about the family, including her grandmother, the descendant of a renowned dynasty of shawl makers, whose magnificent striped (or caramelo) shawl has come into Lala's possession, in a multi-generational saga of a Mexican-American family.

Call number: Fiction Cisneros

Cruz, Angie. Soledad

(2001) Leaving Washington Heights and her Dominican roots to pursue her dreams of becoming an artist, Soledad says goodbye to her family and heads to New York University never to return; but when her mother is taken ill, she must return home and attempt to keep her family together while maintaining her individuality.

Call number: Fiction Cruz

Duarte, Stella Pope. Let Their Spirits Dance

(2002) A family, shattered by the Vietnam War, makes a healing cross-country pilgrimage from south Phoenix to Washington, D.C., to touch that city's famous memorial to the dead soldiers of that war.

Call number: Fiction Duarte

Garcia, Ricardo L. Coal Camp Days: A Boy's Remembrance

(2001) In this fictionalized memoir based on the author's childhood, a 6-year-old boy describes his life in a coal mining town in northern New Mexico during World War II.

Call number: Fiction Garcia

Johnson, Rob. Fantasmas: Supernatural Stories by Mexican American Writers

(2001) In Mexico, "cuentos de fantasma" are a popular form of literature combining fantasy, folktales, and pulp fiction. This is the first collection of such stories written by Mexican American writers.

Call number: 813.6080886 F217 2001

Lamazares, Ivonne. The Sugar Island

(2000) During the 1960s, at the height of the Castro revolution, Tanya and her mother join other native Cubans on a perilous midnight escape from their homeland aboard a makeshift raft headed for refuge in the United States, but when they reach Florida, they discover that the American Dream may be more difficult to achieve than they had thought.

Call number: Fiction Lamazares

Menendez, Ana. In Cuba I Was a German Shepherd

(2001) The mixed sentiments of pride and frustration that come with adjustment to American society are common threads in this story collection by a Cuban-American, Pushcart Prize-winning author.

Call number: Fiction Menendez

Mireles, Jovita González. The Woman Who Lost Her Soul: And Other Stories

(2000) The late author, a long-time member of the Texas Folklore Society, preserves the oral traditions and customs of her native state in this collection, originally published in several different periodicals.

Call number: Fiction Mireles

Montes, Marisa. Something Wicked's in Those Woods

(2000) When their parents are killed in an accident, 11-year-old Javier and his younger brother leave their home in Puerto Rico to live with their aunt in northern California, where a ghost from an unsolved crime and Javier's new-found psychokinetic powers make their adjustment even more difficult.

Call number: Fiction Montes

Obejas, Achy. Days of Awe

(2001) Growing up in Chicago, Alejandra San Jose, a Cuban refugee, becomes an interpreter and travels back to Cuba where she discovers that her family is actually conversos, Jews who converted to Christianity during the Spanish Inquisition, and embarks on a remarkable journey to the past to discover the truth about her ancestors.

Call number: Fiction Obejas

Rodriguez, Luis J. The Republic of East L.A.: Stories

(2002) The author of "Always Running" captures of the heart and soul of East LA in a collection of powerful stories about the working-class people who inhabit this rundown, colorful section of America's second largest city.

Call number: Fiction Rodriguez

Saldana, René. The Jumping Tree

(2001) Rey, a Mexican American living with his close-knit family in a Texas town near the Mexican border, describes his transition from boy to young man.

Call number: Fiction Saldana