September 15 to October 15 is Hispanic Heritage Month, an opportunity to celebrate the heritage and cultures of Hispanic and Latino communities in the United States. According to the Smithsonian’s National Museum of the American Latino:
The timeframe of this month is significant because many Central American countries celebrate their independence days within these dates, beginning on September 15. By aligning with these independence dates, Hispanic Heritage Month honors the resilience and determination of the Hispanic community. Key independence days celebrated within Hispanic Heritage Month include:
- September 15 – Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, and Nicaragua
- September 16 – Mexico
- September 18 – Chile
- September 21 – Belize
In honor of this month, UVA Library staff members are recommending a few books and works of art that highlight different aspects of the Hispanic/Latino experience. All are available through the UVA Library via the links provided.
Check out their suggestions below:
“Chicano Frankenstein” by Daniel Olivas (Forest Avenue Press, 2024)
Daniel Olivas’ slim and sly novel tackles massive issues headlining our news every day, such as immigration, racism, exploitation of labor, as well as more personal issues like self-identity and showing love. The novel is set in a United States so close to real that it must be only one timeline over from ours. A certain group of people are resented, mistrusted, and dehumanized, even though they fill the nation’s labor needs and make us all richer. Our protagonist belongs to this group, and we make our way through the narrative as he traverses an unsure life as someone who is, essentially, a reanimated jumble of body parts. We also dip into news reports, transcripts of Oval Office meetings (POTUS Cadwallader’s anti-reanimation election message is MASA, Make America Safe Again), and the thoughts of a woman who might be falling in love with the man at the center of the book. Everybody, especially the reader, tries to get a handle on who he is, and by the end, he seems to be just another guy going for an evening jog.
— Leigh Rockey, Librarian for Collections Management and Video Resources
“The Border Between Us” by Rudy Ruiz (Blackstone Publishing, 2024)
Ramon is a little boy who lives in Brownsville, Texas, but because his family straddles the Brownsville/Matamoros border, by the end of this book he is a young man who struggles with his identity. The novel traces Ramon’s growth through experiences both heartwarming and frightening. At the start, Ramon dreams of buying an Evel Knievel-branded bicycle (Gen Xers will understand), and he succeeds by selling bags of Mexican chile powder to kids at his Brownsville parochial school, even when the nuns at the schoolyard snack bar shut him down. In high school, Ramon emerges as a gifted artist, despite the tragic deaths of his friends, and he paints a triptych of a boy crossing the Rio Grande that launches him into art school in New York. Upon his return to the border years later, Ramon must face his father’s death, his own character flaws, and the seeming loss of his artistic gift. In the end, he comes to terms with the border inside himself, saves the family business, and finds the inspiration to return to the canvas.
— Leigh Rockey, Librarian for Collections Management and Video Resources
Latin American photography
In the wake of the Mexican Revolution, Latin American photographers joined the ranks of artists and revolutionaries to create vital works that served both as cultural document and surrealist exploration. These stark black and white images feel otherworldly and familiar, and charged with the energy of political resistance and cultural pride. UVA Library holds many incredible collections of monographs, exhibition catalogs, and biographies that showcase these artists. Here are a few recommendations.
Manuel Álvarez Bravo (1902-2002)
A self-taught photographer, Bravo was heavily influenced by photojournalists like Tina Modotti, Paul Strand, and Edward Weston; as well as the work of Surrealists like Andre Breton. Bravo’s work captured the cosmopolitan districts of Mexico City and its more rural surroundings, striving to document the modernization of Mexico and its people. This can be seen in his 1933 photo “La hija de los danzantes (The Daughter of the Dancers),” depicting a figure peeking through a window, or perhaps through the looking glass.
Lola Álvarez Bravo (1903-1993)
Briefly married to Manual Álvarez Bravo during his early career as a freelance photojournalist, Lola Bravo became a well-known photographer in her own right. Perhaps best known for her photographs of Frida Kahlo, Bravo’s work documents rural and city life across Mexico with a keen eye for drawing complex emotions in images of seemingly mundane daily rituals.
Graciela Iturbide (b. 1942)
Born in Mexico City, Iturbide began taking photographs as a way to process the loss of her daughter in 1970. Her style brings out the surreal in daily life, perhaps best shown in her most famous photograph “Nuestra Señora de Las Iguanas” (1979), depicting a woman at the market with a headdress of live iguanas, taken in the town of Juchitán de Zaragoza.
Sebastião Salgado (1944-2025)
A photojournalist of world renown, Salgado use a large format camera to photograph stark images of immense detail. His work focuses on the human and environmental toll of global consumerism and poverty, creating works of immense physical and emotional scale. A perfect example can be seen in his series of photos documenting the Serra Pelada gold mines of Brazil, showing us in visceral detail the agony and power of the body over the suppression of the environment and the economic struggle these miners face to survive.
— Kiowa Hammons, Director of Copyright & Scholarly Communication Services
Short stories by Mariana Enriquez
Argentine author Mariana Enriquez is known for her graphic and intense storytelling that combines psychological horror with magical realism. I am grateful that I decided to read her most celebrated collections of short stories rather than a full novel because I found that I needed to take a break between some of the stories to recover emotionally before reading more.
Gentle reader, these are not simply horror stories. These stories are tiny, encapsulated masterpieces that terrify in the most intimate way possible. I was not prepared for this.
The stories are mainly told from the first-person point of view and almost always surface evils that have emerged from disturbing societal problems. Our narrators are not always sane and are not always reliable. Enriquez’s characters often emerge from the most desperate and neglected populations in urban society; they include Satan-worshipping crack whores, mutant children from polluted barrios, teen drug addicts, and the well-meaning adults who try to rescue them, which often results in a dramatic and gory come-uppance for do-gooders. The stories are often unresolved, leaving the reader to use their imagination to decide what sort of horrific fate has befallen our characters.
Not every story is terrifying, but every story exists to challenge the reader. Enriquez doesn’t write to entertain, but to provoke. I highly recommend — but only in small doses.
These titles are available in a variety of formats from the UVA Library in English and Spanish:
- “Things We Lost in the Fire” by Mariana Enriquez, trans. Megan McDowell (Hogarth, 2017)
- “Las Cosas Que Perdimos En el Fuego” (Edición en formato digital.)
- “The Dangers of Smoking in Bed” by Mariana Enriquez, trans. Megan McDowell (Hogarth, 2021)
- “Los Peligros de Fumar En la Cama” (Edición en formato digital)
- “Los Peligros de Fumar En la Cama” (Primera edición)
- “A Sunny Place for Shady People” by Mariana Enriquez, trans. Megan McDowell (Hogarth, 2024)
- “Un Lugar Soleado Para Gente Sombría” (Primera edición)
— Amy Hunsaker, Librarian for Music & the Performing Arts
