Hispanic Heritage Month is a month-long celebratory tribute to the generations of Hispanic Americans who have positively influenced and enriched our society and nation. It takes place between September 15 and October 15 each year.
Keep reading to check out our recommendations from our very own library collection:
American Like Me: Reflections on Life Between Cultures by America Ferrera
Award-winning actress and political activist America Ferrera always felt between cultures: she is wholly American, but her identity is inextricably linked to her parents’ homeland in Honduras. In this book, she invites fellow actors, athletes, comedians, artists, and writers to explore their own personal connections with more than one culture.
Like Water for Chocolate by Laura Esquivel
Like Water for Chocolate, or Como Agua por Chocolate, was on the bestseller list in both Mexico and the United States for two years. It’s the story of the all-female De La Garza family sprinkled with tragedies, fate, magic, and reunification. Taking place in turn-of-the-century Mexico, Like Water for Chocolate is a poignant family tale of earthiness, passion, and recipes.
Lost Children Archive by Valeria Luiselli
Lost Children Archive is the story of a family road trip from New York to Arizona. The mother and father, both sound journalists, become consumed by the stories they hear on the car radio of children yearning to reach the United States but being stopped at the southern border, held in detention centers or being sent back to their homelands. At the same time, the family itself is confronting a crisis of their own, leading them on their grandest, most imaginative adventure.
In the Time of Butterflies by Julia Alvarez
Based on the true story of the three Mirabel sisters, In the Time of Butterflies takes place in the 1960s under the Trujillo regime in the Dominican Republic. The three young wives and mothers are assassinated after visiting their jailed husbands. Alvarez blends fact and fiction to bring las mariposas, or the butterflies, to life. This novel is an American Library Association Notable Book and was nominated for the National Book Critics Circle Award in 1995.
In the Midst of Winter by Isabel Allende
In the Midst of Winter begins with a traffic accident. Richard Bowmaster — a 60-year-old human rights scholar — hits the car of Evelyn Ortega — a young, undocumented immigrant from Guatemala — in the middle of a snowstorm in Brooklyn. At a loss, the professor asks his tenant Lucia Maraz — a 62-year-old lecturer from Chile — for her advice. These three very different people are brought together in a mesmerizing story that moves from present-day Brooklyn to Guatemala in the recent past to 1970s Chile and Brazil.
Agnes Robinson Waterloo Public Library 