NCW Libraries

Esperanza and her mother are forced to leave their life of wealth and privilege in Mexico to go work in the labor camps of Southern California, where they must adapt to the harsh circumstances facing Mexican farm workers on the eve of the Great Depression.

"An anthology of short stories, essays, poetry, and comics about the Mexican American experience"--

"Responding to shifts in the political and economic experiences of Mexicans in America, this newly revised and expanded edition of Mexicanos provides a relevant and contemporary consideration of this vibrant community. Emerging from the ruins of Aztec civilization and from centuries of Spanish contact with indigenous people, Mexican culture followed the Spanish colonial frontier northward and put its distinctive mark on what became the southwestern...

"Illusion and the possibility of magic coexist with the pain and joy of daily life in these compelling pieces mostly set in the Texas-Mexico border region. In one, a girl desperately wants to know more about her mother, who died when she was four years old. Did she like being a mom? Would she have preferred partying with her friends? When her eccentric aunt says she can teach her how to travel back in time, the girl is skeptical. Is it really possible...

Because he can only speak Spanish, Francisco, son of a migrant worker, has trouble when he begins first grade, but his fascination with the caterpillar in the classroom helps him begin to fit in.

"Beto and Gaby anxiously wait for their relatives to arrive for Thanksgiving dinner. One by one, they each call to inform the family that they will not be able to attend because of a great snowstorm. Suddenly, their grandmother appears with a group of elder friends who have nowhere to have dinner, and the celebration becomes really special. Contains an informative section on Thanksgiving Day" --

"His first-ever collection of stories, Jaime Cortez's Gordo is set in a migrant workers camp near Watsonville, California, in the 1970s. A young boy named Gordo fights back tears underneath a wrestler's mask as he is forced to fight other boys and grow into his father's expectations of manhood. As he comes of age, Gordo learns about sex, poverty, and discovers the wrenching divides between documented and undocumented immigrants. Fat Cookie, high schooler...

As a child admires the moon, their mother imparts Mexican Indigenous wisdom of the moon's phases as they relate to our bodies and lives.

"An illustrated picture book autobiography in which award-winning author Yuyi Morales tells her own immigration story"--

"Growing up in Yakima, Washington, Noé Álvarez never knew his grandfather. Stories swirled around this mythologized, larger-than-life figure: that he had abandoned his family, and had possibly done something awful that put a curse on his descendants. About his grandfather, young Noé was sure of only one thing: That he had played the accordion. Now an adult, reckoning with the legacy of silence surrounding his family's migration from Mexico, Álvarez...