The Other Side: Fault Lines, Guerrilla Saints and the True Heart of Rock ‘n’ Roll by Rub6n Martinez, Verso, 1992, 168 pp. $24.95 (cloth). Martinez takes us from San Salva-dor to Mexico City to Los Angeles, with side trips to Tijuana and Havana, as he looks “for the home I’ve lost and found countless times over the past five years.” This intense book of recollections and poetry captures the joyful and painful life of a Latino writer/witness who is never quite at home. New Chicana/Chicano Writing edited by Charles M. Tatum, University of Arizona Press, 1992, 185 pp., $14.95 (paper). This delightful collection of short stories and poetry celebrates the creative ferment of the Chicano literary community. Tatum suggests that Chicano literature is on the cusp of widespread acceptance and popularity in the United States. Judging by the quality of the selections in this volume, one must heartily agree. The collection gathers together contributions from such well-known Mexi-can-American writers as Gloria Andalztia and Gary Soto, as well as others plucked from relative obscurity. Among the gems in this volume are the poem by Orlando Ramirez of a man’s thoughts upon hearing his wife talking in her sleep, and the short story by Andalztia about the visitations of a ghostly spouse to his grieving widow. Out of the Barrio: Toward a New Politics of Hispanic Assimilation by Linda Chavez, Basic Books, 1992, 208 pp., $23.00 (cloth). Chavez hauls out the well-worn conservative argument that disadvantaged minorities do themselves a disservice by harping upon their ethnic identity. Former Director of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights and a prominent Republican, Chavez suggests that Latinos should assimilate into the mainstream, in the pattern of other immigrant groups. She blasts the entitlement programs spawned by the civil rights movement for encouraging Latinos to cling to their language and culture in return for the perks doled out to recognized minority groups. In this fluently written book, Chavez exhorts Latinos to pull themselves up by their collective bootstraps, and to eschew crutches like the Bilingual Education Act and the Voting Rights Act. She claims that using their own resources, Latinos have advanced higher up the economic ladder than is commonly recognized. Distinguishing between recent immigrants and U.S.-born Latinos, she argues that the majority of the latter are solidly middle-class. Brutality Unchecked: Human Rights Abuses Along the U.S. Border with Mexico, An Americas Watch Report, May 1992, 81 pp., $8.40 (paper). This carefully documented report examines human-rights abuses committed by INS agents during the arrest and detention of undocumented immigrants along the U.S.-Mexico border. The human-rights group Americas Watch reports that beatings, rough physical treatment, and racial slurs are routine, and unjustified shootings, torture and sexual abuse are not uncommon. The authors liken the kind of abuse and the unresponsiveness of the U.S. government to the offenses of some of the more brutal regimes in Latin America. Americas Watch blames INS misconduct on poor agent training and supervision, and low agent morale. It condemns the INS for its “willingness to cover up or defend almost any form of egregious conduct by its agents.” Mexico: For Sale, a video by Mexico Libre Productions (P.O. Box 20018, Altadena, CA 91001), $52.45 (sale). The talking heads of Mexico’s academic Left critique the free-trade agreement. Includes an interview with NACLA author David Barkin. In Span-ish, no subtitles. 500 Afios del Pueblo Chicano/ 500 Years of Chicano History in Pictures by Southwest Organizing Project, 1991, 238 pp., $14.95 (paper). This collection of photographs, with bilingual captions, is a striking introduction to radical Chicano history. The unpolished, rough feel of the book, apparently put together on a shoe-string budget, gives a sense of immediacy and intimacy, as if the reader were perusing a family scrapbook. The volume covers the major events of Chicano history-from the Conquest and the Mexican Revolution to the Chicano movement of the 1960s and modern-day Mexican-American struggles. This remarkable visual narrative whets the appetite for further study of this seldom-told history. Life and Labor On the Border by Josiah McC. Heyman, University of Arizona Press, 247 pp., $40.00 (cloth). An anthropological study of several generations of working people from the border region of Sonora, Mexico. From the early days of copper mining to the present maquiladoraera, Heyman captures-with rich historical detail–the daily challenges and uncertainties of Mexican working-class life, and the routine tensions of life on the U.S. border. Hispanic Children and Youth in the United States: A Resource Guide by Angela L. Carrasquillo, Garland Publishing, 1991, 321 pp., $ 18.95 (paper). Carrasquillo outlines the demographic, cultural, linguistic, socioeconomic and educational characteristics of Latino children and youth. She then uses this statistical profile to analyze the Latino experience in the realms of health, work, higher education and criminal justice. Carrasquillo is careful to differentiate among the sociocultural experiences of Mexican Americans, Central Americans, Cubans and so on. This clearly written resource guide is a valuable source of information for school teachers and social workers who want to be attentive to the special needs of Latino youngsters. Latino Immigrant Youth: Passages from Adolescence to Adulthood by Timothy Ready, Garland Publishing, 1991, 273 pp., $38.00 (cloth). Ready tracks a group of 161 Central American teenagers from their arrival in Washington, D.C. in the early 1980s, through their early forays into the work force. During his six-year “anthropological case-study,” Ready observes the integration of these young Latinos into the social and economic life of the city. Ready relies heavily on long out-takes of transcribed interviews, apparently in an attempt to capture the immediacy of individual testimony. But because so many different voices are heard, it’s hard for the reader to identify with any given narrative.
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