Continue the celebration of Latinx Heritage Month with these recently published books about the diversity of Latinx experience and culture. For more, also explore our new Latinx Voices collection that highlights resources from creators who identify as Afro-Latinx or Latinx.
The Chicago metropolitan area is home to one of the one of the largest Mexican American populations in the United States. In Making Mexican Chicago: From Postwar Settlement to the Age of Gentrification, Mike Amezcua explores Mexican immigration to the city and the fight for housing, political and economic power, and belonging in neighborhoods like Pilsen and Little Village. Through political involvement, radical uprising, arts activism, and other forms of grassroots organizing, Mexican Americans have transformed Chicago’s urban landscape.
Olga is a successful wedding planner in New York City, and her brother Prieto is a popular politician. Raised by their grandmother after their mother left to fight for Puerto Rico’s independence, the siblings search for love and fulfillment. But as Hurricane Maria devastates Puerto Rico, and the U.S. fails to provide relief, their mother reenters their lives. Amidst a story of relationships and family secrets, Xochitl Gonzalez’s Olga Dies Dreaming explores the American Dream, cultural identity and inequality in this New York Times fiction best seller.
Brown Trans Figurations: Rethinking Race, Gender, and Sexuality in Chicanx/Latinx Studies explores the invisibility of brown transgender narratives within the larger context of queer, trans, and Latinx historical experiences. Francisco J. Galarte analyzes film, literature, and popular culture, as well as provides compelling critiques of feminist theory, to further situate the intersections of trans identity, race, and ethnicity.
This stunning history of Latinx photography in the United States spans themes of family, activism, identity, and daily life, as well as experiences of immigration and marginalization. Individual profiles of 80 artists are accompanied by photographs featuring documentary and street photography, photojournalism, portrait photography, narrative series, conceptual projects and more. While representing geographic and aesthetic diversity, Elizabeth Ferrer’s Latinx Photography in the United States: A Visual History traces the emergence of a Latinx consciousness in photography and the impacts of Latinx photographic artists on the medium.
In his funny and poignant debut memoir, High-risk Homosexual, Edgar Gomez candidly explores his gay and Latinx identities alongside machismo culture. On his path to self-discovery, Gomez spends time with extended family in Nicaragua, navigates club culture in Florida, and is medically diagnosed a “high-risk homosexual.” His story encompasses all the messiness of coming out and coming of age, and especially what it means to be yourself.