Latinos: A Biography of the People [Hardcover]

Earl Shorris (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 1992

They are sometimes called the people who died twice, once at the hands of the Spaniards, more recently at the hands of Anglos practicing a subtler exploitation. They are Latinos, the fastest-growing minority in the U.S. This book explores their lives and their history, revealing the persistence and vitality of Latino culture expressed in art, music, literature, and politics.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Latinos in the U.S., as Shorris defines them, are a complex of people of varied ancestry--Mexicans, Cubans, Puerto Ricans, Dominicans, Salvadoreans, for example--"in danger of becoming the largest insignificant minority in American history." Moving from the barrios of New York City's Spanish Harlem and East Los Angeles to Miami's Cuban community to Southern farms on which migrant workers endure abominable, Third World conditions to El Paso where Hispanics have launched an assault on the bastions of Anglo economic power, Shorris gives eloquent voice and texture to Latino dreams, history, culture and aspirations . His montage of social analysis, reportage, folkways and oral history is a magnificent portrait of diverse people struggling against stereotyping, racism, exploitation and the racismo which causes one Latino group to demean another. A contributing editor of Harper's , himself married to a Latina, Shorris ( Power Sits at Another Table ) gauges the relentless pressure on Latinos to conform and their resistance to the melting pot. He looks at upwardly mobile professionals, entrepreneurs, exploiters and civil servants; activists and politicians attempting to "draw their people out of the refuge of metaphysics and family"; gang members in revolt and workers earning 18 cents per hour. He assesses innovative bilingual education programs, traces the Latino influence on American English, cuisine, films and music, and charts the brutal daily war between immigration agents and illegal border-crossers, a war that leaves hundreds of nameless corpses each year. Exploring the widening rift between the Roman Catholic Church and the Latino community, Shorris visits a curandero (healer) and delves into Mexican American Santeria, a spiritistic folk religion. He incisively critiques contemporary Latino writers and painters, and profiles such figures as Cesar Chavez, Paul Rodriguez, Roberto Clemente, exiled Cuban poet Jorge Valls and Jaime Inclan, director of a family therapy clinic on Manhattan's Lower East Side. A definitive, energizing, brilliantly searching group portrait. QPB main selection; BOMC selection; $75,000 paperback floor; author tour. (Oct.) .
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal

Using an oral storytelling style and chapter vignettes, Shorris attempts to cover the history and the current condition of all the North American Latinos, who are identified as descendants of the Spanish conquest of the New World. Beginning with Columbus's subjugation of the native populations in the West Indies, Shorris, a contributing editor of Harper's magazine, recounts the struggle of the Latino people (Mexican Americans, Puerto Ricans, Cuban Americans, etc.) against Anglo racism, language barriers, and economic and political discrimination. He also offers an unflinching look at the condition of Latinos in Los Angeles, Miami, and New York. Shorris's meandering style makes his book a difficult tool to use academically, however, and the abundance of detail at times overwhelms his message. Still, this is a worthy purchase for urban libraries or any library serving any size Latino population.
- Sharon Roman, Carroll Cty. P.L., Westminster, Md.
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 520 pages
• Publisher: W W Norton & Co Inc; 1st edition (October 1992)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0393033600
• ISBN-13: 978-0393033601
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.1 x 1.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,083,098 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Raised my consciousness as a whole, as a people., May 11, 2002

By 

Ulysses Mendez - See all my reviews

This review is from: Latinos: A Biography of the People (Paperback)

This is just a fantastic book. It will be one of my classics from here on. I appreciated where he started, "the plan of the book and the name of the people", from that moment on - I was hooked. It really raised my consciousness of which we are as a whole, as a people.
I have recommended this book to everyone I know to have as part of his or hers library or on coffee tables.

5 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars muy buena biografia de un pueblo, June 9, 2000

By 

Luis Méndez (Republica Dominicana) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Latinos: A Biography of the People (Hardcover)

esta historia es instructiva, me ayudo aenterarme de cosas que ignoraba y cosas que no queria admitir. el llama a los latinos las personas que muerieron dos veces y nos muestra una radiografia historica de nuestros origenes y de nuestra presente adaptacion al medio norteamericano. algunos conservan restos de su cultura, los mas viejos conservan su lenguaje y sus tradiciones, los mas jovenes son absorbidos por la cultura que las trasnforma en seres sin raices ni tradiciones, que no son ni de aqui ni de alla. es un buen libro para conocernos y saber que no importa cuantos anos permanezcamos fuera no es bueno olvidarnos completamente de nuestros origenes.

LUIS MENDEZ [e-mail]