Celebrate our Latinx/Hispanic Heritage!
Yahaira’s father leaves for his annual summer trip to the D.R., the plane crashes, leaving no survivors and upending the lives of Yahaira and his other daughter, Camino. In the months following the crash, the girls, previously unknown to each other, discover their sisterhood—and their father’s double life—and must come to terms with difficult truths about their parents.
In spoken-word lines that explicate the tension between what people say and what they mean, Acevedo confronts the cultural specter of hair-related prejudice through the lens of colonial history and Afro-Dominican identity. “Some people tell me to ‘fix’ my hair. And by fix, they mean straighten; they mean whiten”—but, the poem’s speaker intones, “how do you fix this shipwrecked history of hair?"
A debut memoir by the son of working-class Mexican immigrants describes his upbringing in Washington State, membership in the Peace and Dignity Journeys movement and competition in the Native American cultural marathon from Canada to Guatemala.
Forbidden by her strict Mexican grandma to learn Spanish, Ri Fernández decides to find her mother in an effort to understand her mixed heritage, but nothing goes as planned, forcing Ri to define who she really is.
In this collection of stories by acclaimed young adult authors the Latin American diaspora travels to places of fantasy and out into space. Justice, prison reform, polyamorous love, feminism, toppling dictators, and other timely topics populate the pages of this collection of short stories set in Puerto Rico, the Dominican Republic, Argentina, magical realms, and distant planets.
In Wild Tongues Can't Be Tamed, the entries interrogate the different myths and stereotypes about the Latinx diaspora. These fifteen original pieces delve into everything from ghost stories and superheroes, to memories in the kitchen and travels around the world, to addiction and grief, to identity and anti-Blackness, to finding love and speaking your truth.
Nonbinary teen Ander is ready to leave their family's taquería and focus on their art, but when Santi, an undocumented immigrant from Mexico, begins to work at the restaurant, the two teens spark a romance made complicated by immigration police.
Theo Mori and Gabriel Moreno have always been at odds. Their parents own rival businesses-an Asian American cafe and a Puerto Rican bakery-and Gabi's lack of coordination has cost their soccer team too many games to count. Can they put aside their differences long enough to save their parents'shops or will the new feelings between them boil over?
Twenty Mexican American authors share what it is like to be a part of two worlds and not be accepted by either. Entries range from realistic fiction to fantasy and include poetry, personal narratives, and art—all of them reminding teens of the complexity of the Mexican American experience. Voices reach out from the pages of this anthology, tugging at readers and pushing them to see the difficulties and beauty of what it means to live as a Mexican American in the United States.
Charlie Vega is struggling, and who can blame her? She's continuously bullied by her mother about her weight, resigned to being overshadowed by her thin and popular best friend Amelia, withdrawn from her Puerto Rican extended family after the death of her father, and tossed aside by her admittedly unworthy crush. When she meets a new coworker, Brian, it's not easy to let go of her insecurities in pursuit of her own happiness
17 year old trans boy Nicholás Caraveo is ready to start his career as a Wall Street analyst, hoping to provide financial security for his family in Wisconsin. He’s excited to live near his cousin Daisy in West Egg, but is shocked to discover that Daisy is passing as White, hiding her Latine heritage from her rich, racist fiance, Tom. Feeling unmoored in a sea of racism, classism, and toxic masculinity, Nick is drawn to Jay Gatsby who is also gay and trans.
Under pressure from parental expectations and an abusive father, Camila takes pains at home to conceal her after-school activities and passion for fútbol. On the field, however, she lets loose and tears it up as Furia —fierce futbolera and captain of Eva María Fútbol Club. When her team qualifies for a major tournament that requires a parental signature to participate, Camila must find the strength to reveal the truth and continue pursuing her goals in a community rife with machismo and rigid ideas about gender and ambition.
Hiding a magical ability to manipulate fire and ice, transmasculine nonbinary teen pirate Mar teams up with the most unlikely allies to reverse a wicked bargain made by their father and retrieve his soul from el Diablo.
Funeral for Flaca is an exploration of things lost and found--love, identity, family--and the traumas that transcend bodies, borders, cultures, and generations. Emilly Prado retraces her experience coming of age as a prep-turned-chola-turned-punk in this collection that is one-part memoir-in-essays, and one-part playlist, zigzagging across genres and decades, much like the rapidly changing and varied tastes of her youth.
Sixteen-year-old Mexican American Yami Flores starts Catholic school, determined to keep her brother out of trouble and keep herself closeted, but her priorities shift when Yami discovers that her openly gay classmate Bo is also annoyingly cute.
Juliet, a self-identified queer, Bronx-born Puerto Rican-American, comes out to her family to disastrous results the night before flying to Portland to intern with her feminist author icon--whom Juliet soon realizes has a problematic definition of feminism that excludes women of color.
A modern retelling of the myth, Orpheus and Eurydice, in which Eury leaves Puerto Rico for the Bronx, haunted by losing all to Hurricane Maria and by evil spirit Ato, and meets a bachata-singing charmer, Pheus.
Sal is devastated when he learns that his grandmother, Mima, is dying of cancer, but that isn’t the only thing on his mind. He’s frightened by the violent impulses within him that have unexpectedly surfaced after one classmate calls his gay adoptive father a “faggot” and another calls Sal a “pinche gringo” (Sal punches both offenders). Luckily, Sal has support from his adopted Mexican-American family who welcomed him with open arms at age three, and two close friends: Sammy, who remains loyal even after suffering a tragedy of her own, and Fito, who has emerged a survivor despite an unstable family life.
Julia is not your perfect Mexican daughter. That was Olga's role. Then a tragic accident on the busiest street in Chicago leaves Olga dead and Julia left behind to reassemble the shattered pieces of her family. And no one seems to acknowledge that Julia is broken, too. Instead, her mother seems to channel her grief into pointing out every possible way Julia has failed.
Chess player Hector aspires to achieve grandmaster status before his 18th birthday and to eventually get his family out of public housing. Tragedy strikes when Hector's brother Fili is killed by Joey, a classmate of Hector’s who believes that Fili disrespected Joey's brother by stealing his girlfriend. In retaliation, Hector runs over Joey’s brother, crippling him. Both boys, still minors, are sentenced to mandatory attendance at Furman Academy, a military-style school near San Antonio. Hector vows that Joey will pay for his crime, one way or another. Will Hector choose revenge, or move on with his life and forgive Joey?
Yadriel, a gay, trans 16-year-old, is determined to prove himself as a brujo and as a boy, to his traditional family. After being denied his quinces and initiation rite as a brujo, Yadriel takes his fate in his own hands and performs the rite himself, unlocking his magical gifts. While seeking the lost spirit of his recently murdered cousin, Yadriel mistakenly summons the spirit of a recently departed schoolmate named Julian. Helping Julian to cross over would prove Yadriel’s worth as a brujo to his family, but as Yadriel discovers the sort of kind, protective person Julian is, Yadriel may not be able to let him go.
Pequeña, Pulga, and Chico know that in Puerto Barrios, their future and the future of those around them is always uncertain. After Pulga and Chico witness the murder of Don Feliciano, they are pulled in to local gang leader Rey's group, their lives and loved ones threatened unless they comply. In desperation, Pequeña, Pulga, and Chico leave their beloved mothers behind, relying on each other as they make the dangerous journey from Guatemala to the U. S.
Sarai uses verse to navigate the strain of family traumas and the systemic pressures of toxic masculinity and housing insecurity in a rapidly gentrifying Brooklyn, questioning the society around her, her Boricua identity, and the life she lives.
Overachiever Luz 'Lulu' Zavala has straight As, perfect attendance, and a solid ten-year plan. Middle sister Milagro wants nothing to do with college or a nerdy class field trip. On a journey from Baltimore all the way to San Francisco, Lulu and Milagro will become begrudging partners as they unpack weighty family expectations and maybe even discover the true meaning of sisterhood