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BOOKLISTS: The Latina/Hispanic Experience

Use the library catalog to check for availability and locations for the following.

Caramelo by Sandra Cisneros
Every summer Ceyala Reyes' family packs up three cars for their annual trip from Chicago to their grandparents house in Mexico City. A shrewd observer of family life, she soon weaves a spanish soap opera with tragedies, heart break, reconciliation, hate, love, laughter, and tears.

CrashBoomLove by Juan Felipe Herrera
After his father leaves home, sixteen-year-old Cesar Garcia lives with his mother and struggles thorugh the painful experiences of growing up as a Mexican American high school student.

Romiette and Julio by Sharon M. Draper
An African-American girl and a Latino boy fall in love after meeting on the Internet, but they are harrassed by a gang who objects to their interracial dating.

Loves Me, Loves Me Not by Anilu Bernardo
While trying to win the attention of a high school basketball star who already has a girlfriend, Maggie, a Cuban American, learns painful lessons about romantic young love.

An Island Like You by Judith Ortiz Cofer
Read these twelve stories about young people caught between their Puerto Rican heritage and their American surroundings.

Finding our Way by Rene Saldana
A collection of stories about young Mexican Americans living through the hardships of being a teenager but never losing their way.

Buried Onions by Gary Soto
When nineteen-year-old Eddie drops out of college, he struggles to find a place for himself as a Mexican-American living in a violence--infested neighborhood of Fresno, California.

How the Garcia Girls Lost their Accents by Julia Alvarez
The four Garcia girls escape the Dominican Republic and a life of privilege in the 1960s to come to the United States and a difficult adjustment.

The Summer of El Pintor by Ofelia Dumas Lachtman
When sixteen-year-old Monica and her widowed father go back to Los Angeles, reluctantly moving from a wealthy neighborhood to the barrio house her mother grew up in, Monica tries to locate a missing neighbor, and in the process learns about her mother's past.

Jesse by Gary Soto
Two Chicano brothers hope that junior college will help them escape their heritage of tedious physical labor.

The House on Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros
For Esperanza, a young girl growing up in the Hispanic quarter of Chicago, life is an endless landscape of concrete and run-down tenements. Read her story of how she tries to rise above the hopelessness.

Parrot in the Oven: Mi Vida by Victor Martinez
Manny relates his coming of age experiences as a member of a poor Chicano family in which an alcoholic father only adds to everyone's struggle.