This month while re-reading two favorite books — Love in Time of Cholera and the House on Mango Street — I realized how much I’ve missed creating Library book displays to draw people in and showcase our new titles. While Skyline College concluded LatinX Heritage celebrations last week, I wanted to present some new LatinX related e-books published in 2019-2020 that deserve attention, with appeal across disciplines: film, literature, photography, education, and food culture.
All members of the Skyline College community can read titles from the Library’s e-book collection from home. Library cards aren’t required; simply log on as you would to Canvas or email. If you download an entire book to read off-line, it will “return itself” in two weeks.
LatinX Heritage: Notable New E-Books Available Now
Animating Black and Brown Liberation: A Theory of American Literatures
“Offers a new framework for reading American literatures that critically links African American and Latinx traditions and struggles for liberation…Introduces a vital new tool for reading American literatures.”
Becoming Hispanic-Serving Institutions: Opportunities for Colleges and Universities
“Explores how institutions are serving Latinx students, both through traditional and innovative approaches. Drawing on empirical data collected… at three HSIs, Garcia adopts a counternarrative approach to highlight the ways that HSIs are reframing what it means to serve Latinx college students.”
Carmen Tafolla: New and Selected Poems
“ This collection displays her mastery of the art of bilingual code switching, mining the riches of two languages—Spanish and English—to produce works that celebrate the beauty and vigor of a Hispanic heritage that has enriched American culture for generations.”
Darkroom: A Memoir in Black and White
“…an arresting and moving personal story about childhood, race, and identity in the American South, rendered in stunning illustrations by the author, Lila Quintero Weaver.”
Fantastic Short Stories by Women Authors from Spain and Latin America: A Critical Anthology
“The fantastic has been particularly prolific in Hispanic countries during the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, largely due to the legacy of short-story writers as well as the Latin-American boom that presented alternatives to the model of literary realism.”
Food Across Borders
The act of eating defines and redefines borders. What constitutes “American” in our cuisine has always depended on a liberal crossing of borders, from “the line in the sand” that separates Mexico and the United States, to the grassland boundary with Canada, to the imagined divide in our collective minds between “our” food and “their” food.
Knitting the Fog
“Weaving together narrative essay and bilingual poetry, Claudia D. Hernández’s lyrical debut follows her tumultuous adolescence as she crisscrosses the American continent: a book’both timely and aesthetically exciting in its hybridity’”
Picturing the Barrio: Ten Chicano Photographers
“Mexican-American life, like that of nearly every contemporary community, has been extensively photographed. Yet there is surprisingly little scholarship on Chicano photography. Picturing the Barrio presents the first book-length examination on the topic.”
The Taco Truck: How Mexican Street Food is Transforming the American City
“Icons of Mexican cultural identity and America’s melting pot ideal, taco trucks have transformed cityscapes from coast to coast.”
The Translational Turn: LatinX Literature into the Mainstream
“More than theorizing about translation, this book underscores long-standing contact, such as code-mixing and bi-multilingualism, between the two languages in U.S. language and culture.”
Librarians Available to Help
Do you have questions about reading, assigning or embedding e-books in your syllabus? Just jump onto the Library chat service for help. We’re available 65 hrs/week! Are there collections you’d like to know more about? Titles you’d like for the Library to own? Please send us your suggestions at <silversharpj@smccd.edu> or fill out a Purchase Recommendation Form.
Curbside Pickup Coming Soon!
Lastly, stay tuned for instructions coming soon: Skyline College Library is launching curbside pickup service by appointment for books you’d like to borrow from the circulating print collection, beginning this November.
Article by Jessica Silver-Sharp
Ane Basanez is a Skyline College International Student from Spain, currently studying electrical engineering and computer science. Ane is also a Student Intern as part of the Bay Area Entrepreneur Center’s Internship Job Shadow Program and is on the Study Abroad and Exchange Program Team at Skyline College. As part of her role on the Study Aboard team, Ane assists with creating useful email templates, capturing relevant data and making sure the team stays current with news. She uses her customer service skills and leadership ability that she learned in Spain to be a positive force on the team.
