"How can truth best be spoken?" asked the Aztec philosopher Cuahtencoztli. "It is only in poetry - xochicuicatl - flor y canto - that we can express truth," replied Prince Tecayehuatzin. A new age is dawning, Sexto Sol, the Sixth Sun, and the indigenous inhabitants of the Americas speak to both the past and the future in this volume of poetry, fiction, essay and art. From a project that began with old maps and Aztec codices, here flourishes a truth suppressed by the European conquest. It is a truth suppressed but not forgotten: We belong. Editors Roberto Rodrigue and Patrisia Gonzales are well known activist-journalists and the authors of the weekly and syndicated "Column of the Americas."

Inspiring, heartwarming and humorous, this special story collection celebrates Latino life and community across the country.

In lowriding culture, the ride is many things—both physical and intellectual. Embraced by both Xicano and other Indigenous youth, lowriding takes something very ordinary—a car or bike—and transforms it and claims it. Using the idea that lowriding is an Indigenous way of being in the world, artist and historian Dylan A. T. Miner discusses the multiple roles that Aztlán has played at various moments in time, from the pre-Cuauhtemoc codices through both Spanish and American colonial regimes, past the Chicano Movement and into the present day. Across this “migration story,” Miner challenges notions of mestizaje and asserts Aztlán, as visualized by Xicano artists, as a form of Indigenous sovereignty. Throughout this book, Miner employs Indigenous and Native American methodologies to show that Chicano art needs to be understood in the context of Indigenous history, anticolonial struggle, and Native American studies. Miner pays particular attention to art outside the U.S. Southwest and includes discussions of work by Nora Chapa Mendoza, Gilbert “Magú” Luján, Santa Barraza, Malaquías Montoya, Carlos Cortéz Koyokuikatl, Favianna Rodríguez, and Dignidad Rebelde, which includes Melanie Cervantes and Jesús Barraza. With sixteen pages of color images, this book will be crucial to those interested in art history, anthropology, philosophy, and Chicano and Native American studies. Creating Aztlán interrogates the historic and important role that Aztlán plays in Chicano and Indigenous art and culture.

Necessity is the mother of invention and this all began with a plea on a listserv: “We have a sixteen year old Mayan Quiche young man who won’t stop crying in our school”. How desperate must a parent be to say goodbye to their child/children to perhaps never see them again because of wars in Syria or gang violence in Central America making citizens so desperate? Will the children make it alive to the next border with so many more to cross? Will they really eventually meet up with family? Or is this pure folly? Will these children be able to go to school for an equitable education and have a much better life than their parents could ever imagine? More important are the implications for U.S. schools: how are they managing the sudden influx of children refugees who are road weary and expected to participate in school structures seamlessly? Many are not aware that, linguistically, these children may not be Spanish-speaking, but only communicate in their own indigenous language.

For the first time, this book presents the distinguished, prolific, and highly experimental writer Juan Felipe Herrera. This wide-ranging collection of essays by leading experts offers critical approaches on Herrera, who transcends ethnic and mainstream poetics. It expertly demonstrates Herrera’s versatility, resourcefulness, innovations, and infinite creativity. As a poet Herrera has had an enormous impact within and beyond Chicano poetics. He embodies much of the advancements and innovations found in American and Latin American poetry from the early l970s to the present. His writings have no limits or boundaries, indulging in the quotidian as well as the overarching topics of his era at different periods of his life. Both Herrera and his work are far from being unidimensional. His poetics are eclectic, incessantly diverse, transnational, unorthodox, and distinctive. Reading Herrera is an act of having to rearrange your perceptions about things, events, historical or intra-historical happenings, and people. The essays in this work delve deeply into Juan Felipe Herrera’s oeuvre and provide critical perspectives on his body of work. They include discussion of Chicanx indigeneity, social justice, environmental imaginaries, Herrera’s knack for challenging theory and poetics, transborder experiences, transgeneric constructions, and children’s and young adult literature. This book includes an extensive interview with the poet and a voluminous bibliography on everything by, about, and on the author. The chapters in this book offer a deep dive into the life and work of an internationally beloved poet who, along with serving as the poet laureate of California and the U.S. poet laureate, creates work that fosters a deep understanding of and appreciation for people’s humanity. Contributors Trevor Boffone Marina Bernardo-Flórez Manuel de Jesús Hernández-G. Whitney DeVos Michael Dowdy Osiris Aníbal Gómez Carmen González Ramos Cristina Herrera María Herrera-Sobek Francisco A. Lomelí Tom Lutz Manuel M. Martín-Rodríguez Marzia Milazzo Maria Antònia Oliver-Rotger Rafael Pérez-Torres Renato Rosaldo Donaldo W. Urioste Luis Alberto Urrea Santiago Vaquera-Vásquez

This major poetry collection is a fearless depiction of a Latina living in the best and worst of times.

From East L.A. to the barrios of New York City and the Cuban neighborhoods of Miami, Latino literature, or literature written by Hispanic peoples of the United States, is the written word of North America's vibrant Latino communities. Emerging from the fusion of Spanish, North American, and African cultures, it has always been part of the American mosaic. Written for students and general readers, this encyclopedia surveys the vast landscape of Latino literature from the colonial era to the present. Aiming to be as broad and inclusive as possible, the encyclopedia covers all of native North American Latino literature as well as that created by authors originating in virtually every country of Spanish America and Spain. Included are more than 700 alphabetically arranged entries written by roughly 60 expert contributors. While most of the entries are on writers, such as Julia Alvarez, Sandra Cisneros, Lorna Dee Cervantes, Oscar Hijuelos, and Piri Thomas, others cover genres, ethnic and national literatures, movements, historical topics and events, themes, concepts, associations and organizations, and publishers and magazines. Special attention is given to the cultural, political, social, and historical contexts in which Latino literature has developed. Entries cite works for further reading, and the encyclopedia closes with a selected, general bibliography. Entries cite works for further reading, and the encyclopedia closes with a selected, general bibliography. The encyclopedia gives special attention to the social, cultural, historical, and political contexts of Latino literature, thus making it an ideal tool to help students use literature to learn about history and cultural diversity.