After years of anti-immigrant backlash, anger seethes in the nation's teeming barrios. The crowded streets bristle with restless youth, idled by a deep recession. When undercover detectives in San Antonio accidentally kill a young Latina bystander during a botched drug bust, riots erupt across the Southwest. As the inner-city violence escalates, Anglo vigilantes strike back with shooting rampages. Exploiting the turmoil, a congressional demagogue succeeds in passing legislation that transforms the nation's Hispanic enclaves into walled-off Quarantine Zones. Citizens tagged Class H -- those who are Hispanic, married to a Hispanic, or have at least one grandparent of Hispanic origin -- are forced into detention centers. Amid the chaos in his L.A. barrio, Manolo Suarez is out of work and struggling to support his growing family. But under the spell of a beautiful Latina radical, the former U.S. Army Ranger and decorated war veteran finds himself questioning his loyalty to his wife -- and to his country.
Author Highlights:
- Best Novel Award Winner - International Latino Book Awards
- Violet Crown Awards Fiction Finalist, Writers League of Texas
- Books Into Movies Award Winner - presented by Edward James Olmos
- USA Today Summer Reads author
- LATINA Magazine "10 Hottest Summer Reads" author
- Named #1 among "2011 Top Ten Latino Authors" by LatinoStories.com
- Listed among "Best Hispanic Writers of the 21st century" by ChaCha.com
- Amazon Bestselling author
Cuban-born Raul Ramos y Sanchez grew up in Miami's cultural kaleidoscope before becoming a long-time resident of the U.S. Midwest. Ramos began his debut novel America Libre in 2004 with the input of scholars from Latin America, Spain, and the United States. A multiple award winner, the author and his work have been featured on television, radio and print media across the U.S. and abroad.
In his own words...
"January" is the first English word I ever learned. I read it on the calendar thumbtacked to the wall of our apartment in the Bronx. Han-noo-a-ree, I pronounced it. That was in the winter of 1957. My mother had just divorced my father and moved us from Havana to New York City. My father was busy trying to overthrow Batista and my mother thought her prospects for raising a seven-year-old son looked much better sewing sequins on evening gowns in the midtown garment district than in a Cuban prison. Thanks, mamá. You made the right call.
Since mastering that first English word, the power and joy of words have become my life. I not only love words, I've made a living from them. First, composing them into pages as a graphic designer, and later arranging them into sentences as an advertising writer. After twenty-four years of creating the fiction commonly known as advertising, I decided to start telling my own stories.
Reflecting on my past, it's not surprising I would write about a rebellion. I saw one unfold firsthand between 1957 and 1961 in Cuba. Staying with my father during summer breaks from U.S. schooling, I experienced the life of an insurgent. My father and uncle ran contraband supplies to Castro using a used tire business as a cover. Perhaps most sobering was learning how fragile a government can be. Fulgencio Batista fled the island in 1959. Overnight, the police and military no longer had the might to maintain public order.
Castro's sudden rise to power transformed Cuba. During the anti-American rallies Castro fomented, I heard my relatives shout hateful slogans about people I knew and loved in Miami. Castro was preparing Cuba for war and I saw how some leaders use hate, fear, and patriotism for their own ends. As an eleven-year-old I received military weapons training. That's how desperate Castro's war preparations were.
Thanks to my mother, I managed to escape. She returned to Cuba and arranged a trip for us to visit relatives in Madrid. When our flight made a stop in Bermuda, we got off the plane. Eventually, we were able to return to the United States. Fifty years would pass before we had any contact with our Cuban relatives. These experiences were the wellspring for many of the characters and scenes of America Libre, House Divided and Pancho Land.
