Reddit mentions: The best hispanic & latino biographies

Autogenerated.

IAMA award-winning journalist and author specializing in immigration news! AMA!

Hi, Reddit! My name is Daniel Connolly and I wrote my first news article about immigration from Mexico in 2001. Since then, I’ve returned to the subject over and over. From 2002 to 2006 I covered Mexican immigration to the South for news organizations in Birmingham, Alabama as well as Little Rock, Arkansas.
In 2006, I moved back to my hometown, Memphis, Tennessee. Like many cities in the South, Memphis saw relatively little immigration until the 1990s, but has seen dramatic changes since then. It’s been a fascinating story to follow.
I spent more than five years researching and writing a narrative nonfiction book about children of Mexican immigrants coming of age in Memphis. It’s called The Book of Isaias: A child of Hispanic immigrants seeks his own America.
Link: https://www.amazon.com/Book-Isaias-Hispanic-Immigrants-America/dp/1250083060
It won first place for Best Political / Current affairs book in the 2017 International Latino Book Awards.
It’s also been named to the 2017 Social Justice Book List published by The National Network of State Teachers of the Year, as well as to booklists including the Latino Life Booklist published by the Boston Public Library. http://www.bpl.org/research/adultbooklists/latinolife2017.pdf
I’m now covering immigration, breaking news and a wide range of other subjects for The Commercial Appeal newspaper in Memphis, Tennessee. https://www.commercialappeal.com/
I’m also an advisory board member for a startup immigration newsletter called Migratory Notes. https://medium.com/migratory-notes
I’ve lectured on immigration and related issues across the country, including Ohio University, Kenyon College, Seattle University and Princeton University.
I’ll do my best to answer your questions about Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA), the current immigration climate, immigration history, and anything else you want to know. AMA! Proof: http://www.danielconnolly.net/latest-news/


-----------------------------------------------------------

IamAbot_v01. Alpha version. Under care of /u/oppon.
Comment 1 of 1
Updated at 2018-03-15 15:05:25.498321

Next update in approximately 20 mins at 2018-03-15 15:25:25.498342

Personally, I read for fun in my spare time and usually learn about other things (which inevitably I manage to relate back). I've also found that audiobooks are awesome for law school. I have to cook, I have to do laundry, I have to clean the house, walk to the grocery store, and all of those things can be done while listening to an audiobook. Some of the below were listened to, others were read traditionally.

That being said, this book on the Warren Court was "recommended" in Con Law and I found it short and revealing about a significant era in SCOTUS history.

I adored Sonia Sotomayor's autobiography, which was more about her youth and early career but felt like listening to a bad ass Aunt talk about her life choices when she was my age.

Gideon's Trumpet (Although if, era of the book be damned, if it described lawyers as "young men" one more time, I swear to god...)

Sisters in Law also felt like a nice preview of Con Law - a lot of the cases we read in Con Law were familiar to me as I'd read that before then.

Pop-crime books that I nevertheless got me thinking about law when I read them include In Cold Blood (which I listened to while in Evidence class and found myself being like - wait, why isn't this a 403 violation or hearsay? and then looking the law up to clarify the rule I hadn't quite started learning yet) and Missoula: Rape and the Justice System in a College Town.

I also highly recommend the podcasts Radiolab: More Perfect (spin off); the Radiolab episode The Buried Bodies Case; and the podcast Stuff You Missed in History Class, many episodes of which are either explicitly about a court case (they have several on like, Loving v. Virginia, Brown v. Board, the cases about special education) or more related to lesser known policies that didn't really make it to Court (e.g., the Bracero program).

Edit: typo

Edit 2: The More Perfect episode, "The Political Thicket," which came out two weeks after I took my Con Law exam, was pretty much straight up the answer to question #3 on my exam.

Thanks, but the satisfaction of finding the answer is reward enough for me. :) I couldn't stop looking until I found a source, so here's a book with the picture on the cover: http://www.amazon.com/Frida-Twentieth-Centurys-Influential-Hispanics/dp/1420500198

I can't recommend any scholarly texts on the subject, but since this is a field that interests you, here's something you might want to read: How I Learned English: 55 Accomplished Latinos Recall Lessons in Language and Life. It's all anecdotal, but I found it very interesting.

Edited to add full title.

Actually when Batista first emerged in Cuban politics (1933), it was through a militray coup that saw him end up as Chief of the Army. Yes, he had strong ties at the time with Communists and Socialists on the island but it was a relationship of convenience. When he makes a run for the Presidency in 40 (40-44), it's the backing of labor and the Cuban left that get's him there. However, when he grows tired of being Cuba's backstage strongman and takes the Presidency without elections in 52, he is a very different man. He has new and more powerful allies, he doesnt need public support (hence no election) - United Fruit and Organized Crime would provie the muscle to keep him in power with no need to pander to anyone beyond the Cuban elite that benefitted from his rule.

Frank Argote-Freyre wrote a pretty good bio years ago but he never wrote a second volume.

Read Canseco's first book, Juiced.

It might not be as explosive now as when it was new, but it's a good read about steroids in baseball and the majority of his claims have been vindicated since the book came out.

He is blunt and doesn't pull any punches.

Taco U.S.A.: How Mexican Food Conquered America by Gustavo Arellano is a great read which does cover both the history of food in Mexico from the origins of corn cultivation through the Spanish arrival and then focuses on its deep integration into American culture. The author is a highly respected Mexican-American food writer with a whole lot of unique insights on Mexican food's past, present & future. Essential reading, IMO.

Don't know what you like to read so I'm going to go a few ways, but these are good ''stuck in bed'' books. By Author (because thats how i like to read):


Haruki Murakami:

• Kafka on the Shore **
  
• The Wind-up Bird Chronicle
  
• After Dark
  
  Hunter S Thompson (and related):*
  
  
• The Rum Diary
  
• Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail '72
  
• Autobiography of a Brown Buffalo
  
  Manuel Puig (these are shorter):
  
  
• Eternal Curse on the Reader of these Pages*
  
• Kiss of the Spider Woman
  
• Boquitas Pintadas
  
  Not by same authors, but would be good together:
  
  
• The Tin Drum- Gunter Grass*
  
• House of Leaves
  
• The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao
  
• Earthly Powers- Anthony Burgess **
  
  Favorites
  
  Feel Better!
  
  

A couple of books about major events in 20th-century Mexico:

Villa and Zapata is a good introductory look at the personalities and issues in the Mexican Revolution.

Opening Mexico is a great book about the end of PRI rule.

Lol, I was trying to find this video and I started reading through the comments. Thought I would elucidate since it wasn't archived. ;)

The book is a great read if you're looking for some offseason fodder.

Wow, you're so wrong that you managed to piss off both Gustavo Arellano and Rick Bayless in one sentence. That's a pretty big feat.

This episode didn't have any recommendations for additional reading on Sonia Sotomayor.

I'd recommend "My Beloved World" by the woman herself.

There are some AMAZING resources here, so I'll just throw in a few others:

The Body Remembers

The Body Keeps the Score)

Enrique's Journey

Crossing Over

The Devil's Highway

Random Family

Lost Children of Wilder

If anyone is interested in a great book about the struggles of immigrants crossing the border, go read The Devil's Highway.

"The Story of the Shipwrecked Sailor" by Gabriel Garcia Marquez is short and amazing!

http://www.amazon.com/Shipwrecked-Sailor-Gabriel-Garcia-Marquez/dp/067972205X

Sounds like this bitch: https://www.amazon.com/dp/1455540242/ref=cm_sw_r_other_apa_QteFyb9GGYR8Z

Sonia Nazario, the reporter talked about in that story, wrote a book on illegal immigration called Enrique's Journey, which follows an immigrant as he tries to reach America. It's well worth reading if you're interested on the subject.

I recently read "Revolt of the Cockroach People" by Oscar Acosta (aka Dr. Gonzo in Fear & Loathing in Las Vegas). Highly recommended for the uninitiated if you're interested in more of this rich history. He took up a lot of the Chicano legal cases in that period. Those seemed like crazy times, politically and culturally.

Having grown up near Los Angeles, I've come to deeply appreciate the different styles of Mexican cuisine that are present in the city. Over the years, it simply became unfair to lump all food that had semblance to Mexican cuisine into one category, so there was a movement that began a few years ago with acclaimed food writer Bill Esparza and legendary food critic Jonathan Gold to distinguish the various styles from each state in Mexico in the city. There was also a new style of Mexican that emerged over the years in L.A. called Alta California that was a sort of haute cuisine approach to Mexican cuisine. When it comes to "Mexican food chains", I definitely feel they have their place, but it comes back to the notion of lumping these chains into one generic category, which many people unfortunately do. That's my one issue with even mentioning the word "Mexican" to describe the food sold in these spots.

For further research, I recommend a few sources:

Taco USA: How Mexican Food Conquered America by Gustavo Arellano

L.A. Mexicano by Bill Esparza

The Migrant Kitchen, S2, E1: Alta California

Link for those interested: Blame It On Bianca Del Rio: The Expert On Nothing With An Opinion On Everything https://www.amazon.com/dp/0062690876/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_AdBUAbE2Q1BVH

Course text: Taco USA: How Mexican Food Conquered America by Gustavo Arellano.

Mexican food is the drug more addictive than meth or cocaine.

The author of Taco USA: How Mexican Food Conquered America.

This one?

Gangs in Garden City? The only thing is it was published a few years ago.

My Japanese cars were made in America, you laptop may have been designed in America and made in China. You’re “Mexican” food is American food.
https://www.amazon.com/Taco-USA-Mexican-Conquered-America/dp/1439148627

Don't take my word for it.

Have you read the book Honky, and if so, how close was it to your experience?

Read The Devil's Highway, this is not a troll.

For the UK fish: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Blame-Bianca-del-Rio-Everything/dp/0062690876/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1518977864&sr=8-1&keywords=Bianca+Del+Rio

How do you figure?


https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/ol/0060746416/ref=mw_dp_olp?ie=UTF8&condition=all

Juiced.

Jose Prosecco.

Mexico doesn't do anything about illegal immigration because it's embarrassing for them. There was one incident a while back where a group of border crossers were found dead in the desert from dehydration. It got some news coverage and Mexico had declared them national heroes and had the bodies flown back for burial. The other is because they gain finically from all the foreign remittance that gets sent back. This isn't just for Mexico but other countries that have a high count of illegal immigration in the US.

For an example of just how lucrative it can be, PEW says that for 2017 that Mexico received over $30 billion dollars sent in remittances. Other countries like El Salvador rely on it and actually makes up a large amount of their GDP. Just over 17% in their case.

Because of how easy the money is for these countries they have no real pressure or reason to act. What needs to be figured out is how to make it where the amount of money coming in isn't worth the cost.



https://www.pewresearch.org/global/interactives/remittance-flows-by-country/

https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2018/01/29/remittances-from-abroad-are-major-economic-assets-for-some-developing-countries/

The story about the migrants being called heroes is from this book. https://www.amazon.com/Devils-Highway-True-Story/dp/0316010804

> the devils highway

This?

Looks interesting

Not OP but here's one I read in college that deals with illegal immigration for those who might be interested http://www.amazon.com/Enriques-Journey-Sonia-Nazario/dp/0812971787

Right and now in the U.S. we are starting to have people who are questioning the system of Capitalism. 'Trying to organize coups or revolutions, etc is just a try for control. It is a positive action in the big picture'. Who are we in the U.S. to be financing coups and revolutions in other countries we have no control over? Just look up who Flugencio Batista was where he was a U.S. backed dictator. Yes he was a political prisoner just read the book The Autobiography of Martin Luther King, Jr. he was arrested for violating the laws of segregation and was labeled a 'communist' on multiple occasions.

> And you aren't aware of the administration drugging kids so they are docile and quiet because you chug Breitbart, T_D, and FOX cock

Why can't you people just be polite when debating something with me? I'll bet you've complained at least once before about Donald Trump "ruining our country's reputation by slinging shit and talking bad about people on twitter" that's what you're doing to me right now. Let's have a discussion with some modicum of respect please. I'm not being mean to you. Maybe snarky, but not mean. Okay?

As to what you said, it sounds like you think we live in some Cyberpunk Dystopia where children are ... held in abandoned walmarts? I'd like to see more on that. Can't wait for it to be "children arrested at a walmart before being taken to a government holding cell"

What is the matter with you? Should these children be allowed to enter our country illegally because they are children? why should it matter if they are children? Are you saying that the adults being imprisoned for crossing illegally is acceptable? That's the only reason I can think for why you would only mention children.

I would recommend you read Enrique's Journey it tells the story of a boy named Enrique from Honduras who comes illegally, attempted several times and being deported I think seven times, to the United States to be with his mother. What he endured on the way to the US was 1,000% more horrendous than anything that happened to him when he got closer to the US border. You should be trying to prevent these children from coming here, and to instead lobby support for increasing their quality of life in their countries. They get abducted and put into sex trafficking. Women are raped. Girls have to wear shirts that say "I have AIDS" on them to scare away rapists. Mexican Police are corrupt. It's very bad stuff, and you aren't helping by virtue signalling on reddit, pal.