When Maricarmen meets Rey el Cantante, beloved small-time Robin Hood and local musician on the rise, she begins to envision a life beyond the tight-knit community of el Caserío, Puerto Rico--beyond cleaning houses, beyond waiting tables, beyond the constant tug of war between the street hustlers and los camarones. But breaking free proves more difficult than she imagined, and she soon finds herself struggling to make a home for Rey, his young brother...
"For childhood friends Gabe, Xavier, Tavo, Paul, and Bimbo, death has always been close. Hurricanes. Car accidents. Gang violence. Suicide. Estamos rodeados de fantasmas was Gabe's grandmother's refrain. We are surrounded by ghosts. But this time is different. Bimbo's mom has been shot dead. We're gonna kill the guys who killed her Bimbo swears. And they all agree. Feral with grief, Bimbo has become unrecognizable, taking no prisoners in his search...
"Primarily told from the perspective of women and children in the Northeast who are tethered to fathers and families in Puerto Rico, these stories explore the cultural confusion of being one person in two places - of having a mother who wants your father and his language to stay on his island but sends you there because you need to know your family. Loudly and joyfully filled with Cousins, Aunts, Grandparents, and budding romances, these stories are...
"A short story collection spanning a century of Black American and Afro-Latino life in Puerto Rico, Pittsburgh, Louisiana, Miami, and beyond-and an evocative meditation on belonging, the meaning of home, and how we secure freedom on our own terms"-- Provided by publisher.
"A searing and deeply personal memoir that explores the institutions--family, society, country--that defined a Puerto Rican woman and what she unlearned to rediscover herself. Growing up in the Midwest, raised by a Puerto Rican mother who was abandoned by her family, Jamie Figueroa and her sisters were estranged from their culture, consumed by the whiteness that surrounded them. In Mother Island, Figueroa traces her search for identity as shaped by...
A disillusioned writer in San Juan finds himself stalked by a Chinese immigrant student, and as the two realize that they share a similar plight, they move towards bitter-sweet collaborations in passion, grief, literature, and art.
"An award-winning journalist, TV political analyst, and creator of TheGrio documentary, Afro-Latinx Revolution: Puerto Rico, recounts her experiences as an African American and Puerto Rican woman, reflecting on her improbable journey from Syracuse to Harvard, hedge fund boardrooms to newsrooms, and beyond in pursuit of America's infinite opportunities. Part inspiring memoir, part cultural analysis, with remarkable self-determination, Natasha S. Alford...
In this intimate memoir, international superstar Ricky Martin opens up for the first time about his early childhood, experiences in the famed boy band Menudo, reflections on coming to terms with his sexuality, relationships that allowed him to embrace love, and life-changing decisions like devoting himself to helping children around the world and becoming a father.
In the 1950s, 9-year-old Andrea Rodriguez and her brother leave Woronoco, Massachusetts, for the mountain villages of Puerto Rico and then, months later, are brought back to the tiny factory town where everything has changed and must navigate the rifts between their family's values and all-American culture as they journey into adulthood.
"A powerful novel of family, race, faith, sex, and disaster that moves between Puerto Rico and The Bronx, revealing the lives and loves of five women and the secret that binds them together."-- Provided by publisher.
"The Ramirez women of Staten Island orbit around absence. When thirteen year old middle child Ruthy disappeared after track practice without a trace, it left the family scarred and scrambling. One night, twelve years later, oldest sister Jessica spots a woman on her TV screen in Catfight, a raunchy reality show. She rushes to tell her younger sister, Nina: This woman's hair is dyed red, and she calls herself Ruby, but the beauty mark under her left...
"There was always an old woman dying in the back room of her grandmother's house when Isla was a child... Isla Larsen Sanchez's life begins to unravel when her father passes away. Instead of being comforted at home in New Jersey, her mother starts leaving her in Puerto Rico with her great-aunt each summer, like a piece of forgotten luggage. It is only when Isla turns eighteen, and her grandmother, a great storyteller, dies, that Isla discovers she...
"A groundbreaking historical novel from a heralded author that explores the seldom discussed Puerto Rican Atlantic Slave Trade. At a time when importing humans from Africa had been prohibited by the Spanish Crown, Pola and other slave women provide their master with babies who are immediately taken away and sold on the auction block. Her serial rapes by a number of men are routine and often provided entertainment for the master and his friends. Understandably...
Drawn to the exotic island of Puerto Rico by the diaries of an ancestor who traveled there with Ponce de León, Ana Cubillas becomes involved with enamored twin brothers Ramón and Inocente before convincing them to claim a sugar plantation they have inherited.
