HOUSTON, TX—The Molina Family Latino Gallery, the first physical presence of the National Museum of the American Latino, will open at the National Museum of American History in Washington, D.C. on June 18, 2022. Established by Congress in December 2020, the new National Museum of the American Latino will feature documents and artifacts from the University of Houston’s Recovering the US Hispanic Literary Heritage project (Recovery), directed by Dr. Nicolás Kanellos, the Brown Foundation Professor of Hispanic Studies and founder/director of Arte Público Press. Dr. Kanellos was a consultant for the gallery, which will exhibit periodicals, photos, documents and books related to his research on the history of Latino printing presses and newspapers, dating back to the late eighteenth century in areas that became part of the United States. Other items on loan from the Recovery Project include documents from the 1929 founding of the League of United Latin American Citizens …
Debut Collection Spotlighting Hispanic and Indigenous Peoples in the Southwest Wins Award
HOUSTON, TX—Oscar Mancinas’s evocative collection, To Live and Die in El Valle, has been awarded the 2021 Southwest Book Award from the Border Regional Library Association. The thirteen thought-provoking stories highlight the struggles of Hispanic and indigenous people in Arizona whose lives are impacted by migration, systemic racism and settler colonialism. The Border Regional Library Association (BRLA) was founded in 1966 to promote library service and librarianship in the El Paso/Las Cruces/Ciudad Juárez metroplex. More than 100 library professionals from Trans-Pecos Texas, Southern New Mexico and Northern Chihuahua are members of the organization. The group created the Southwest Book Award in 1971 to recognize books about the region. Vividly depicting working-class communities, Oscar Mancinas creates characters whose lives are shaped by circumstances beyond their control, including migration and discrimination. His characters frequently struggle with a sense of belonging, and their stories eloquently illuminate Hispanic and indigenous experiences in the Southwest. …
Kids’ Book Exploring Latino Culinary Traditions Wins Award
HOUSTON, TX—A bilingual picture book introducing children to Hispanic cultural traditions, Josefina’s Habichuelas / Las habichuelas de Josefina (ISBN 978-1-55885-923-4, hardcover, $18.95), is the winner of the 2021 Salinas de Alba Award for Latino Children’s Literature. This charming story by Jasminne Mendez, published October 31, 2021, tells the story of a young girl whose mother challenges her to give up sweets during Lent. As a reward, Josefina’s mom promises to teach her how to cook habichuelas con dulce, or sweet cream beans, a traditional Dominican dessert eaten at Easter. Enlivened by Flor de Vita’s warm illustrations depicting an Afro-Latino, multigenerational family spending time together, the book will appeal to kids ages 4 to 8 who will enjoy testing the recipe—and eating the dessert—that appears in both English and Spanish! In 2019, according to the Cooperative Children’s Book Center, only 225 of the 4,029 children’s books published were written by Latinos; …
Convocamos a todos los autores Latinos…
Houston, TX— Generaciones de niños hispanos en escuelas de Estados Unidos se relacionan con libros que no reflejan su cultura ni su herencia. En 2019, según el Cooperative Children’s Book Center, solo 225 de 4.029 libros infantiles publicados fueron escritos por autores latinos; solo 235 de ellos sobre latinos. En un esfuerzo por saldar esa deuda, Arte Público Press está aceptando manuscritos para libros infantiles a ser considerados para el Salinas de Alba Award for Latino Children’s Literature. Este reconocimiento busca atender la necesidad de materiales de lectura bilingüe que sean más relevantes culturalmente para niños hispanos, y para ello invita a más escritores a crear contenido para este público en crecimiento. El premio se entregará anualmente al autor de un manuscrito para libro ilustrado infantil. Los manuscritos pueden ser enviados a lo largo del año. El ganador o ganadora recibirá $5.000 en efectivo además de la edición de su …
J. Bret Maney
J. Bret Maney joined the Lehman faculty in 2015 as an assistant professor of English. He is a literary scholar and translator whose research and teaching focus on nineteenth- and twentieth-century American literature and culture, the digital humanities, and the practice and theory of translation. His literary scholarship has appeared or is forthcoming in CENTRO: Journal of the Center for Puerto Rican Studies, Studies in American Naturalism,the Journal of Modern Literature, Kairos: A Journal of Rhetoric, Technology, and Pedagogy,and The Encyclopedia of Greater Philadelphia. In the field of translation studies, Maney is the translator and co-editor of a bilingual scholarly edition of Guillermo Cotto-Thorner’s Manhattan Tropics/Trópico en Manhattan, the first novel about the Puerto Rican mass migration to New York City (Arte Público, 2019). He has published other literary translations from the French and Spanish in journals such as Asymptote, Exchanges, Small Axe, Gulf Coast, Lunch Ticket, and The Brooklyn Rail. He is a past …
José M. Hernández
José M. Hernández, in 2004, became the first migrant farmworker to become a NASA astronaut. An impressive achievement in itself, José’s accomplishment is even more amazing in light of the journey he took to get there. Born into a migrant farm-working family from Mexico, José didn’t learn English until he was twelve years old. He spent much of his childhood on what he calls the “California circuit,” travelling with his family from Mexico to California’s southern San Joaquin Valley each March, then working northward to the Stockton area by summer, picking strawberries, cucumbers, cherries and tomatoes along the way. In late November, they would return to Mexico for Christmas and wait until March to start the cycle all over again. In California, José spent weekends laboring in the fields with his family, and while the end of the school year meant summer fun for his peers, it meant working seven …
Yolanda Gallardo
YOLANDA GALLARDO is a poet, playwright and novelist born in the Bronx to parents of Cuban and Venezuelan/Puerto Rican heritage. Her play, Everybody Knows My Business, has been performed in Puerto Rico and optioned for Off Broadway. She’s the author of a digital poetry collection, The Fragile Thread (Word Wrangler Press), and her poems have been published in journals including Long Shot Magazine and Chiricú Journal. The Glass Eye (Arte Público Press, 2019) is her debut novel. She lives and works in Bronxville, New York.
Spooky Stories for October
Are you looking for some chilling tales to read before bedtime this October? We’ve gathered up a collection of creepy cuentos that will give you goosebumps and send shivers down your spine (Arte Público is not responsible for any scary dreams)! Brujas, lechuzas y espantos / Witches, Owls and Spooks In this bilingual collection of five stories, Don Cecilio tells the neighborhood children stories that make their hair stand on end. “In my barrio they told the story…” and so his cuento would begin. In “The Owl and the Bundle,” young Tomás disappears without a trace. Distraught, his parents and siblings look for him everywhere with no luck. Upon returning home, his father sees something curious, an owl flying above the house carrying a bundle with its talons. “Is it possible,” he wonders, “that the bundle is Little Tomás?” Could the owl have taken their precious son? Based on oral tradition, these stories …
Reading Goals for 2015
We were inspired by Popsugar and Book Riot’s 2015 Reading Challenges, and decided to create our own recommendations for 2015. Use a website like Goodreads to keep track of what you’ve read. Happy reading! A book written by someone when they were under the age of 25 – Fat No More: A Teenager’s Victory over Obesity; Hispanic, Female and Young: An Anthology; Windows into My World: Latino Youth Write Their Lives A book written by someone when they were over the age of 65 – Klail City / Klail City y sus alrededores A collection of short stories – A Matter of Pride and Other Stories; African Passions and Other Stories; Chicano Chicanery; The Jackets A book published by an indie press – Any of our books! Recent titles include: Bendición; The Skull of Pancho Villa and Other Stories A book by or about someone that identifies as LGBTQ – Desert Blood: The Juárez Murders; Arturo Islas: The Uncollected Works; Tommy Stands Tall A book that is by or about someone …
