Latino/a Literature: Exploring Identity

I'm thrilled to launch the first-ever Latino/a Literature class at Goshen College in January 2012. My students and I will be blogging about the literature we read as we reflect on the extent to which it serves as a window into a new cultural space, or a mirror of our own culture and preoccupations. For each student, this window and mirror configuration will be different, which I hope will lead to some lively discussion. For instance, we will read works by Mexican-(Chicano), Cuban-, Puerto Rican-, and Dominican-American writers. So even Latino students will find windows as well as mirrors in these texts, for Latino/a Literature is, by its very nature, multicultural.

Works we're reading include:

Anaya, Rudolfo. Bless Me Ultima

Aragon, Francisco, ed. The Wind Shifts

Augenbraum, Harold, ed. The Latino Reader

Castillo, Ana. The Guardians.

Diaz, Junot, The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao

Christina Garcia, Dreaming in Cuban

Ernesto Quinonez, Bodega Dreams