Mira!, Oye!, Lee!
We asked and you responded!
Discover a vibrant world of art, literature, and history as we embark on a journey to celebrate Hispanic Heritage Month. We invite you to immerse yourself in the beauty, depth, and diversity of Hispanic and Latinx culture.
This is your portal to explore, learn, and connect with the remarkable contributions and legacies of the Hispanic and Latinx communities.
Movies
-
Comic and actor John Leguizamo examines the repression of Hispanic culture throughout American history in his one-man show "Latin History for Morons."
-
Miles Morales is a beloved character by many. He is the embodiment of the representation of both Black and Latino culture at its finest. Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse, which took home a Best Animated Feature Oscar, is both universal in its storytelling yet so beautifully, culturally specific. Nothing makes me happier than being able to watch this with my younger cousins and witness the joy on their faces when they feel seen on screen.
-
Highly inspired by his childhood memories, Roma is Alfonso Cuarón's most personal film yet. The movie relies on sound as well as a sense of time and space to preserve the authenticity of México from Cuarón’s reflection. It’s a personal portrait of the women who raised him, and it’s handled with the utmost care. As an audience, we feel like a fly on the wall, watching incidents from his life that are so intimate, it almost feels like we are meddling. Using breathtaking long takes to feel the time pass with such elegance and grace, the film is allowed to be raw and vulnerable. It is a cinematic experience.
-
If you’re more into animated movies, you’ll love The Book of Life, produced by Guillermo del Toro, which explores the nature of love and the afterlife in the town of San Angel, Mexico. Joaquin and Manolo are both in love with their longtime friend, Maria. But this is no simple love triangle—two deities have wagered a bet about their marital outcomes and, of course, feel the need to interfere with their relationships.
-
Nominated for a Golden Globe and based on the book by Laura Esquivel, this 1900s-era film features (among other things) the life of a young woman who is madly in love. Her feelings are strong, but she’s unable to marry the man who is the object of her affection, due to a long-standing family tradition. Instead, she expresses her feelings for him through food and cooking, which plays out as magical realism in the film.
-
Got your box of tissues ready? Good, because you’ll definitely need 'em for this one. Under The Same Moon tells the story of a young boy who crosses the Mexican-American border to find his working mother in the United States. The film not only tackles the struggles of family and immigration, but the strong acting performances by Adrian Alonso (Carlitos), Kate del Castillo (Rosario), and Engenio Derbez (Enrique) will be sure to move you.
-
Tearjerker alert; A man who has made a new life for himself and the daughter left on his doorstep 6 years ago finds his family threatened when the birth mother resurfaces.
Genre: Comedy-drama
Origen: Mexico
-
Oldie but a goodie. A Mexican-American master chef and father to three daughters has lost his taste for food, but not for life.
Genre: Comedy-drama
Origen: US
-
2022 British romance film starring Sam Claflin and Verónica Echegui. A British writer realizes that his novel is a success in Mexico because a peculiar translation of it. Quirky and entertaining, live a telenovela!
Genre: Romantic Comedy
Origen: UK/Mexico
-
The film is based on the Dance of the Forty-One which was a society scandal in early 20th-century Mexico. The incident revolved around an illegal police raid carried out in 17 November 1901 in a private home in Mexico City. The scandal involved the group of men who attended, 19 of whom were dressed in women's clothing. Despite the government's efforts to hush the incident up, the press was keen to report the incident, since the participants belonged to the upper echelons of society (including the son-in-law of the incumbent President of Mexico). This scandal was unique in that it was the first time homosexuality was openly spoken about in the Mexican media and had a lasting impact on Mexican culture.
Genre: Drama
Origen: Mexico
-
A hauntingly romantic epic tale spanning three generations of the Trueba family, centered around the relationship between Clara and her controlling husband Esteban. Based on a novel by Isabel Allendes.
Genre: Drama
-
Inspired by the real-life story of NASA flight engineer José Hernández, A Million Miles Away follows him and his devoted family of proud migrant farm worker on a decades-long journey, from a rural village in Michoacán, Mexico, to the fields of the San Joaquin Valley, to more than 200 miles above the Earth in the International Space Station.
Genre: Drama
Where to watch: Amazon Prime
-
Renowned Latino artists and leaders pose for a series of highly personal video portraits that offer a unique glimpse into the vibrant and burgeoning culture of Latino America.
Genre: Documentary, non-fiction
-
A cross-section of influential Latinos creates a candid, compelling portrait of the struggles and triumphs of Hispanics in America in this enlightening follow-up to 'The Latino List.' Includes ASAE 23 featured speaker Soledad O'Brien as well as Raul Yzaguirre
Genre: Documentary, non-fiction
-
Jaime Reyes suddenly finds himself in possession of an ancient relic of alien biotechnology called the Scarab. When the Scarab chooses Jaime to be its symbiotic host, he's bestowed with an incredible suit of armor that's capable of extraordinary and unpredictable powers, forever changing his destiny as he becomes the superhero Blue Beetle.
-
I loved this movie because it's about societal pressures to conform to a certain look and about self-acceptance. It's also about the relationship between mother and daughter.
Genre: Drama/Comedy
-
Get your tissues ready! This movie is about family, culture, death, and honoring those that have passed on. Must see!
Despite his family's generations-old ban on music, young Miguel dreams of becoming an accomplished musician like his idol Ernesto de la Cruz. Desperate to prove his talent, Miguel finds himself in the stunning and colorful Land of the Dead. After meeting a charming trickster named Héctor, the two new friends embark on an extraordinary journey to unlock the real story behind Miguel's family history.
Genre: Kids & family, Musical, Comedy, Fantasy, Animation
Where to Watch: Disney +
-
This movie was a wonderful representation of Latino culture and family dynamics. The vibrant colors and music add a layer of realism not seen before. It's a story of feeling different and family trauma. I definitely recommend it!
Genre: Kids & family, Musical, Comedy, Fantasy, Animation
Where to Watch: Disney +
Books
-
Javier Zamora’s adventure is a three-thousand-mile journey from his small town in El Salvador, through Guatemala and Mexico, and across the U.S. border. He will leave behind his beloved aunt and grandparents to reunite with a mother who left four years ago and a father he barely remembers. Traveling alone amid a group of strangers and a “coyote” hired to lead them to safety, Javier expects his trip to last two short weeks.
Genre: Memoir
-
Author: Erika L. Sanchez
Brief Summary or Why You Love It: In these essays, Sánchez writes about everything from sex to white feminism to debilitating depression, revealing an interior life rich with ideas, self-awareness, and perception. Raunchy, insightful, unapologetic, and brutally honest, Crying in the Bathroom is Sánchez at her best—a book that will make you feel that post-confessional high that comes from talking for hours with your best friend.
Genre: Biography, Autobiography
-
Author: Kali Fajardo-Anstine
Tells the story of five generations of the Lopez family in set in the US West from the 1800s to now. Lots of memorable characters that are relatable.
Genre: Fiction
Origen: Mexican/Chicano
-
Author: Esmeralda Santiago
In a childhood full of tropical beauty and domestic strife, poverty and tenderness, Esmeralda Santiago learned the proper way to eat a guava, the sound of tree frogs, the taste of morcilla, and the formula for ushering a dead baby's soul to heaven. But when her mother, Mami, a force of nature, takes off to New York with her seven, soon to be eleven children, Esmeralda, the oldest, must learn new rules, a new language, and eventually a new identity.
Genre: Memoir
Origen: Puerto Rico
-
Author: Isabel Allende
The Wind Knows My Name is the latest novel from Isabel Allende, the iconic Chilean writer known for her groundbreaking novel, The House of the Spirits. In this new book, Samuel Adler is a six-year-old boy in 1938 who escapes Nazi-occupied Austria to the United States alone and with nothing but clothes and a violin. In 2019 Arizona, Anita Diaz is a blind seven-year-old girl who, along with her mother, escapes El Salvador to seek refuge in the U.S., only to become separated at a camp in Nogales. Throughout the novel, we see these two lives come together in unexpected ways, exploring themes of war, immigration, time, dreams, and the resilience of the human spirit.
Genre: Literary Fiction/Historical Fiction
-
Author: Maria Hinojosa
In Once I Was You, Maria shares her intimate experience growing up Mexican American on the South Side of Chicago. She offers a personal and illuminating account of how the rhetoric around immigration has not only long informed American attitudes toward outsiders, but also sanctioned willful negligence and profiteering at the expense of our country’s most vulnerable populations—charging us with the broken system we have today.
Genre: Non-Fiction
-
Author: Silvia Moreno-Garcia
Brief Summary or Why You Love It: It is beautifully written; very creepy, visual and descriptive. The story leaves you needing to know more about the secrets and mystery of this family in Mexico.
Genre: Fiction/Horror/Fantasy/Mystery
-
Author: Ed Morales
The devastation that ensued finally grew impossible to ignore in 2017, in the wake of Hurricane María, as the physical destruction compounded the infrastructure collapse and trauma inflicted by the debt crisis. In Fantasy Island, Ed Morales traces how, over the years, Puerto Rico has served as a colonial satellite, a Cold War Caribbean showcase, a dumping ground for US manufactured goods, and a corporate tax shelter.
Genre: Politics and Government
Origen: Puerto Rico
-
Author: John Paul Brammer
Brief Summary or Why You Love It: LGBTQ advice columnist John Paul Brammer writes a “wise and charming” (David Sedaris) memoir-in-essays chronicling his journey from a queer, mixed-race kid in America’s heartland to becoming the “Chicano Carrie Bradshaw” of his generation.
Genre: Memoir
Origen: Mexican-American
-
“It's my dad! But seriously, a biography of an important figure in the Hispanic civil rights movement.”
Ben Yzaguirre
Author: Stella Pope Duarte
From the segregated barrios of the Rio Grande Valley in South Texas, to the halls of Congress and the White House, comes a story based on the memoirs of one of America’s premier Latino civil rights leaders: Raul H. Yzaguirre. Born in San Juan, Texas in 1939 to Mexican American parents; his family legacy goes back to the early days of Spanish colonization. Living in a divided city, “the north was for Mexicans and the south was for Anglos,” he learned how to enter both worldswith success through the guidance of his beloved grandfather, Gavino Morin. On a quest at age thirteen, he ran away from home and became the youngest sailor on board the Barbee Nell in Corpus Christi. There he met Dr. Hector P. García, founder of the American GI Forum who took the runaway under his wing, and inspired him to dedicate his life to serving his community. Elected as Presidentand CEO of the National Council of La Raza (NCLR) in 1974, his three decades of leadership built NCLR into the largest constituency-based, national Latinoorganization in American history. Raul Yzaguirre’s life’s story, has empowered America’s Latinos, seating them at tables of power. His life’s motto has become a reality: “To leave the world a better place.”
Genre: Non-fiction
-
Author: Eduardo Obregon Pagan
This is another largely untold story. Racial tensions erupted during WWII when white U.S. military service men began attacking pachucos, or Mexican-Americans wearing zoot suits, in what erupted into a full-blown riot in LA.
Genre: Non-fiction
-
Author: Henry Ramos
Brief Summary or Why You Love It: The largely untold story of one of the most important organizations in the early Hispanic civil rights movement and its leader, Dr. Hector Garcia
Genre: Non-fiction
-
Author: Angie Cruz
Genre: Literary fictionA NEW YORK TIMES EDITOR'S CHOICE
A NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW NOTABLE BOOK
REVIEWED ON THE FRONT COVER
From GMA BOOK CLUB PICK and WOMEN'S PRIZE FINALIST Angie Cruz, author of Dominicana, an electrifying new novel about a woman who has lost everything but the chance to finally tell her story
“Will have you LAUGHING line after line...Cruz AIMS FOR THE HEART, and fires.” —Los Angeles Times
"An endearing portrait of a FIERCE, FUNNY woman." —The Washington Post
Cara Romero thought she would work at the factory of little lamps for the rest of her life. But when, in her mid-50s, she loses her job in the Great Recession, she is forced back into the job market for the first time in decades. Set up with a job counselor, Cara instead begins to narrate the story of her life. Over the course of twelve sessions, Cara recounts her tempestuous love affairs, her alternately biting and loving relationships with her neighbor Lulu and her sister Angela, her struggles with debt, gentrification and loss, and, eventually, what really happened between her and her estranged son, Fernando. As Cara confronts her darkest secrets and regrets, we see a woman buffeted by life but still full of fight.
Structurally inventive and emotionally kaleidoscopic, How Not to Drown in a Glass of Water is Angie Cruz’s most ambitious and moving novel yet, and Cara is a heroine for the ages.
-
Author: Eduardo Obregon Pagan
Genre: Literary FictionA GOOD MORNING AMERICA BOOK CLUB PICK
Shortlisted for the 2020 Women's Prize for Fiction
“Through a novel with so much depth, beauty, and grace, we, like Ana, are forever changed.” —Jacqueline Woodson, Vanity Fair
“Gorgeous writing, gorgeous story.” —Sandra Cisneros
Fifteen-year-old Ana Cancion never dreamed of moving to America, the way the girls she grew up with in the Dominican countryside did. But when Juan Ruiz proposes and promises to take her to New York City, she has to say yes. It doesn’t matter that he is twice her age, that there is no love between them. Their marriage is an opportunity for her entire close-knit family to eventually immigrate. So on New Year’s Day, 1965, Ana leaves behind everything she knows and becomes Ana Ruiz, a wife confined to a cold six-floor walk-up in Washington Heights. Lonely and miserable, Ana hatches a reckless plan to escape. But at the bus terminal, she is stopped by Cesar, Juan’s free-spirited younger brother, who convinces her to stay.As the Dominican Republic slides into political turmoil, Juan returns to protect his family’s assets, leaving Cesar to take care of Ana. Suddenly, Ana is free to take English lessons at a local church, lie on the beach at Coney Island, see a movie at Radio City Music Hall, go dancing with Cesar, and imagine the possibility of a different kind of life in America. When Juan returns, Ana must decide once again between her heart and her duty to her family.
In bright, musical prose that reflects the energy of New York City, Angie Cruz's Dominicana is a vital portrait of the immigrant experience and the timeless coming-of-age story of a young woman finding her voice in the world.
-
Author: Erika L. Sánchez
Genre: Literary Fiction#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • A “stunning” (America Ferrera) YA novel about a teenager coming to terms with losing her sister and finding herself amid the pressures, expectations, and stereotypes of growing up in a Mexican American home.
“Alive and crackling—a gritty tale wrapped in a page-turner. ”—The New York Times
Perfect Mexican daughters do not go away to college. And they do not move out of their parents’ house after high school graduation. Perfect Mexican daughters never abandon their family.
But Julia is not your perfect Mexican daughter. That was Olga’s role.
Then a tragic accident on the busiest street in Chicago leaves Olga dead and Julia left behind to reassemble the shattered pieces of her family. And no one seems to acknowledge that Julia is broken, too. Instead, her mother seems to channel her grief into pointing out every possible way Julia has failed.
But it’s not long before Julia discovers that Olga might not have been as perfect as everyone thought. With the help of her best friend Lorena, and her first love, first everything boyfriend Connor, Julia is determined to find out. Was Olga really what she seemed? Or was there more to her sister’s story? And either way, how can Julia even attempt to live up to a seemingly impossible ideal?
-
Author: Silvia Moreno-Garcia
Genre: Science fiction and fantasyThe Mayan god of death sends a young woman on a harrowing, life-changing journey in this dark, one-of-a-kind fairy tale inspired by Mexican folklore.
“A spellbinding fairy tale rooted in Mexican mythology . . . Gods of Jade and Shadow is a magical fairy tale about identity, freedom, and love, and it's like nothing you've read before.”—Bustle
NEBULA AWARD FINALIST • NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY NPR • Tordotcom • The New York Public Library • BookRiot
The Jazz Age is in full swing, but Casiopea Tun is too busy cleaning the floors of her wealthy grandfather’s house to listen to any fast tunes. Nevertheless, she dreams of a life far from her dusty small town in southern Mexico. A life she can call her own.
Yet this new life seems as distant as the stars, until the day she finds a curious wooden box in her grandfather’s room. She opens it—and accidentally frees the spirit of the Mayan god of death, who requests her help in recovering his throne from his treacherous brother. Failure will mean Casiopea’s demise, but success could make her dreams come true.
In the company of the strangely alluring god and armed with her wits, Casiopea begins an adventure that will take her on a cross-country odyssey from the jungles of Yucatán to the bright lights of Mexico City—and deep into the darkness of the Mayan underworld.
-
Author: Reyna Grande
Genre: Biography & MemoirsIn this inspirational and unflinchingly honest memoir, acclaimed author Reyna Grande describes her childhood torn between the United States and Mexico, and shines a light on the experiences, fears, and hopes of those who choose to make the harrowing journey across the border.
Reyna Grande vividly brings to life her tumultuous early years in this “compelling...unvarnished, resonant” (BookPage) story of a childhood spent torn between two parents and two countries. As her parents make the dangerous trek across the Mexican border to “El Otro Lado” (The Other Side) in pursuit of the American dream, Reyna and her siblings are forced into the already overburdened household of their stern grandmother. When their mother at last returns, Reyna prepares for her own journey to “El Otro Lado” to live with the man who has haunted her imagination for years, her long-absent father.
Funny, heartbreaking, and lyrical, The Distance Between Us poignantly captures the confusion and contradictions of childhood, reminding us that the joys and sorrows we experience are imprinted on the heart forever, calling out to us of those places we first called home.
Articles
La Esquinita is more than a creative corner—it’s a powerhouse for Latino thought leadership, amplifying voices that shape the future of the association profession.
Have a Suggestion?
We're on a mission to craft an enchanting literary voyage that pays homage to the heart and soul of Hispanic and Latinx culture. If you'd like to be a part of this journey, we invite you to share your favorite songs, cherished movies, and treasured literary gems with us.
Feel free to submit as many suggestions as your heart desires.