¿Éxito por Fin? (Success at Last?)

Reflecting upon the books that I have included in my set, I feel that I haven't accomplished my goal: to create a set of texts that as fully as possible reflects the Latin American experience. One text focuses on the Dominican Republic, one on Panama, one on Puerto Rico, and one on El Salvador. I've already mentioned that books focusing on Mexico are fairly available (see the Pura Belpré winners if you'd like to take a look!), and I'm discovering that this is also the case to some degree with Puerto Rico. So the texts reflect the Caribbean and Central America fairly well, but South America was sadly missing - I didn't find any children's or young adult books written by Latin American authors from any countries south of Panama.

Also, one text was from a boy's point of view, one from a girl's and boy's, and two solely from a girl's perspective. This is surprising, because according to Nicolás Kanellos, the director of Piñata Press, the majority of authors of Hispanic American books are women. I'm pleased, then, that my text set is fairly balanced between the two genders.

Another facet of the texts that I've looked at is their setting. One is set in California, two are set in New York, and one is set in Vermont with ties to New York. I would like to find more texts that show the vast range of locations where Latin Americans settle upon moving to the United States, especially including Detroit and Michigan because of my ties to them.

Finding a portrayal of the indigenous cultures within Latin American literature can also be challenging, but three of the books include some mention of more traditional life or language. While only one was overt (A Movie in My Pillow), I was glad that this normally marginalized part of the culture was not entirely hidden.

Lastly, I am excited about the presentations of families in these books. One shows a family with only a mother and daughter, one two children whose parents have just gotten divorced, one with a family including two parents, and one in which the family had been separated when the son and father moved to the United States ahead of everyone else. This underlines that stereotypes do not apply to Latin American families any more than they do to any other group.

Overall, I really like the texts that I have found and I'm excited to share them with my future students, but I have quite a bit of searching ahead of me before I'm satisfied completely.