Explore just a small selection of the great reads the AACC Library has by or about Afrolatinx people and dive into the experiences and connections of the diaspora here and abroad!

• Dawnelle Chandler
  • Afro-Latin@s in movement: critical approaches to blackness and transnationalism in the Americas – Petra R. Rivera-Rideau, Jennifer A. Jones, and Tianna S. Paschel
    • I chose this book because it explores African-descended populations in Latin America and Afro-Latinos in the United States, covering popular music, sports, and media. A little something for everyone to enjoy. It also considers different ways blackness is embodied and imagined. 

• Elise Taylor
  • Blacks and Blackness in Central America – Lowell Gudmundson and Justin Wolfe
  • I chose this book because it highlights the histories of Black people in Central America during a time period when Black people were excluded socially, politically and regionally. This connects to the idea of our sankofa story of preserving our past in order to make us better people today. 

• Amaya Squirewell
  • In the Midst of Winter – Isabel Allende
    • I chose this book because it is a fictional romance book that focuses on an immigrant family coming from Guatemala. This book expresses the hardships faced by immigrants in everyday life and experiences, when the main character who is an undocumented immigrant is experiences a major traumatic event 

• Miracle Berkely
  • Bad hair does not exist! = ¡Pelo malo no existe! –
    Sulma Arzu-Brown
    • I chose this book because of the representation of Afro-Latinas hair. This is a children’s book with both English and Spanish. The book is a tool of empowerment for Black, Afro- descendant, Afro-Latinas. This book encourages Afro-Latina and Black girls to embrace their hair as a meaningful part of their identity and culture.

• Zahria Montgomery
  • Daughters of the diaspora: Afra-hispanic writers – Miriam DeCosta-Willis
    • I chose this book because it uplifts the stories and other creative works of hispanophone, or Spanish speaking, women from African descent. This book speaks on ethnicity, social class, and sexuality which is especially important when learning  about different cultures and experiences of people within those cultures. During Latinx Heritage Month, this could be a great read for people looking to learn more about Afra-hispanic writers and culture!

The book gives a dive into the importance of reggae, rumba, and dances like bachata and salsa, tying it back to its cultural roots, educating the reader with an important aspect of Afro-Latinx heritage.  – Kameron Simpson

• Kameron Simpson
  • Black Music of Two Worlds: African, Caribbean, Latin, and African American Traditions – John Storm Roberts
    • Music that intersects Latinx and Black culture is frequently interacted with by a lot of people but not typically given their flowers and attribution to where it comes from. The book gives a dive into the importance of reggae, rumba, and dances like bachata and salsa, tying it back to its cultural roots, educating the reader with an important aspect of Afro-Latinx heritage.  

• Wynter:
  • Schomburg : the Man Who Built a Library – Carole Boston Weatherford and Diasporic Blackness : the Life and Times of Arturo Alfonso Schomburg – Vanessa Kimberly Valdés
  • I love love love Arturo Schomburg for the instrumental activism he did to ensure the history of Black people is represented in libraries! He was a force of nature and had such a large impact. Arturo Schomburg was an influential Afro Puerto Rican historian, writer, curator, and activist who was influential in preserving and uplifting Afrodiasporic knowledge and heritage!

• Chloe:
  • Plantains and our becoming – Melania-Luisa Marte
  • In this poetry collection, Marte critiques the Western world’s erasure of Afro-Latinx people, celebrates her ancestors, and examines the diversity of Black diasporic experiences by digging into the histories of Haiti and the Dominican Republic. She begins the collection by interrogating what it means to define her racial and ethnic identity in a world that does not recognize Afro-Latinas in the dictionary, and encourages readers to reflect on the value we place on these Western knowledge repositories, when clearly they don’t know everything. Certainly a great read for Latinx Heritage Month if you’re trying to expand your understanding of Afro-Latinx identity outside of rigid Western standards!

Looking for more? Come visit us in Witherspoon Student Center on the 2nd floor through the Art Gallery!