U.S. Latino Literature: My personal reading list

Hola a tod@s,
Last summer I shared my experience and struggles with not being too familiar with U.S. Latino literature because it was never, or hardly ever, included and talked about during my K-16 education. It wasn’t until last year, as a second year PhD student that I decided to act on this and read as many Chicano and U.S. Latino books as I could in a summer. I asked other fellow teachers, friends and family for advice on what books to read and those books directed me to read others. That experience was fun and eye opening. I learned so much about my history as a U.S. born mexicana, but also about the experiences of Puerto Ricans, Dominicans, Colombians, Cubans, Salvadorians etc. in the U.S. This experience has also taught me how important it is to create time and space for student agency when it comes to reading. We need to make this literature part of our Canon. Our students experiences and voices need to be included in the literature we select for our classrooms. All of our students should leave our classroom knowing there are U.S. Latino authors out there, I strongly believe that should be one of our priorities as heritage Spanish teachers. 


I have shared this personal reading list with my students, friends and family. This is a growing list, as I continue to read an explore my roots, I will add more books to this list. In the list, you can find the book title, link to amazon, and a brief description of the book from my point of view.


I hope this list is helpful and if you have any other reading recommendations, please comment below.

Link:https://docs.google.com/document/d/1DugwfHZ9RikAoZrDzAJ-j0ew7Bd2Hl7ahJ7M6Qlj6tU/edit?usp=sharing​



Gracias y hasta luego,
Nancy