No comments about Estrellas Peregrinas / Walking Stars: Cuentos de Magia y Poder / Magic and Power Stories.

No comments about Oscar De LA Renta (Contemporary Hispanic Americans).

2 comments about The New Face of Baseball: The One-Hundred-Year Rise and Triumph of Latinos in America's Favorite Sport.

1. Okay, let's start with my admission that I'm not a baseball fan. I knew the game from childhood but the big money and greed have alienated many of us who enjoyed baseball as kids. That being said, I found that The New Face of Baseball refreshing enough to evoke some of those feelings that made me appreciate baseball in the first place. The book has to do with talented Latino baseball players like Clemente, Cepeda, and Sosa. The common element is that these players played the game elsewhere before coming the United States, places where the game is more sacred and believe it or not more important than here in America.

   The books consists of short stories about many of today's heroes that have quickly become baseball superstars, and those older stars who paved the way for the younger Latino players much the way Robinson and Dobry did for African American players. The author uses player interviews and past experiences of his own to give the reader a greater appreciation for what players Latin America have done for today's game.

   Maybe the most interesting part is the All Century Latino team listed at the end of the book. It's a lineup that would challenge any other all-star team, past or present.




2. 
   Wendel gives a face to the many Latino players that have been a part of baseball in the US -- first in "Negro" leagues and finally in the majors where they have come to dominate. Wendel's writing is always very readable, with facts interlaced with plenty of stories by and about the Latino players. The photographs are a wonderful plus to this excellent account of the rise of Latino players in baseball. Six year olds (such as my grandson) can readily identify the pictures of current players. Another excellent read (this one fiction) by Wendel is "Castro's Curveball." I highly recommend it also.

5 comments about Conversations with the Capeman: The Untold Story of Salvador Agron.

1. This insightful, sensitively written book which brings to light Salvador Agron's life that was imprinted by race, sexual abuse and the condemnation of society gave me not only a new awareness of the criminal justice system, but of human redemption as well. Reading Conversations with the Capeman was a powerful eye-opening experience.



2. Each page of this beautifully written book brings raw emotion to the surface. Richard Jacoby paints a vivid picture of the poverty stricken, abusive childhood that surer than any court sentenced Salvador Agron to a life of alienation and despair. Yet despite being the youngest person ever sent to New York State's electric chair, Agron possessed a spark of human spirit that would not die. It is Jacoby's great accomplishment that he lets Agron's story speak for itself as he takes us through the dark alleys of Puerto Rico, the doo-wop drenched streets of New York and the cold corridors of state prisons where despair is plentiful, yet hope lives. If you want to know why we should treat our kids better and why giving people in trouble a second chance is NOT some mushy-headed idea, read this extremely engaging book.



3. Conversations with the Capeman is an absolutely stunning, beautifully written book about the life of convicted murderer Salvador Agron. Richard Jacoby weaves a brilliant and sensitive memoir of his real-life interviews and relationship with Agron. Jacoby paints a compelling, unbiased portrait of a tragic life; from Agron's youth as a member of a violent New York street gang to his conviction for a murder that he may not have committed, to life beyond prison. This impossible to put down book reads as if one is watching a motion picture. It involves all the elements of a modern-day epic; heartbreak, mystery, deception, love, friendship, redemption, and ultimate tragedy. This novel, of all the books I have read, has had the biggest impact on me...Simply amazing.



4. I have cerebral palsy and I know that for those of us with disabilities, we are very often seen and not heard. that is we are given roles to play by normal society. this is especially true for people with developmental disabilities, from birth or the first few years.
   
   one of those roles is "inspiration." another is "dangerous." and a third is "tabula rasa" on which the nondisabled person projects his or her anxieties.
   
   Paul Simon fell victim to a combination of all three of these, imo, in his unfortunate musical The Capeman. We are supposed be inspired. to learn some unspecified lesson about sin and redemption via the musical. Something that Agron's life does not support.
   
   then the "dangerous" one. This author states that Agron more than likely did not commit the murders. I think that is extremely likely b/c I was a victim, age 12, of a violent physical and sexual assault. (the abusers were white as I am.) and no one "owns" the violence and then - an abuser who is weak but not murderous can be set up to take the fall, if there are consequences for the abusers.
   
   Agron was 'weak' in kind of an odd way. he lacked insight and he lacked awareness of how his thoughts and actions impacted other people, and how theirs impacted him. in other words, I don't know what a diagnosis would be but Agron was very intelligent but naive in a way that reflected the very severe abuse and neglect he grew up with.
   
   when I was 12, I was abused by 6 boys/grown men, ages ranged from about 17 to 25 or so. Drinking and other drugs were involved. That was another point Paul Simon failed to bring out in his musical. And for me, one of the young men became horrified and put a great deal of effort into stopping things, which he was not able to do, and then he tried to get help. lack of modern communication technology made this impossible.
   
   and then he devoted a great deal of effort to getting me out of there alive, which he did.
   
   and - there were no legal consequences, I was very very very ill for a long time. but he was 'guilted' into believing it was all his fault by the other abusers.
   
   my recollection is that he was tormented by guilt and committed suicide.
   
   while the other abusers, they went their merry way, perhaps they were upset at times, perhaps not but....they weren't worrying.
   
   I think it is very quite extremely likely that something like this happened with Agron. that he "confessed" b/c he felt remorse that he had participated in an assault. that he wrote a bunch of fiction b/c he was upset, in danger, lacking insight, and then he did not understand the impact of his words - either a verbal or written confession.
   
   the other perpetrators went on to ignore him and then Agron did time in jail.
   
   that is the "weak" part. Group violence is still very very taboo and for an abuser who has a sense of morality who finds him or herself in that situation - group abuse, which gang violence and group rape are, it can escalate like wildfire.
   
   a perpetrator who is moral who has been there and maybe done terrible things or maybe not done much, but seen them - the taboo nature of the abuse means that the general population reacts with FEAR and horror and then the immoral perpetrators dismiss the consequences of their actions.
   
   the moral ones kill themselves or they 'take the fall' for things they didn't do b/c they were confused, they didn't know better, they were......
   
   I had some very expert help from some of the top psychiatrists in the nation a few years later, in 1985, and this is what I heard from them.
   
   the final error that the nondisabled make is to project their thoughts on us b/c we are often speechless, or denied the opportunity to speak. and imo, the musical did this by having a vague lesson about 'sin' and 'redemption.'
   
   Agron was virtually silent, a nonentity, in that musical. for example, every song released was either so general to be useless "I was born in Puerto Rico..." or it was from a perspective that was not Agron's.
   
   Simon only tried to 'get' Agron in Trailways Bus.
   
   That silence, the lack of listening to us in the midst of what is supposed to be productions about Our Lives, it is very very very typical. and it goes far beyond Paul Simon. in fact it is the standard status quo.
   
   which reinforces something very perceptive that Jacoby quotes Agron as saying. Ironically enough, Agron wrote a paper on the song 'the sound of silence.' he analyzed it through the prism of racism and then he said that Paul Simon's music reinforces conventional morality.
   
   I agree with this. but not b/c he is 'sanitized.' I see nothing 'sanitized' in making a musical about a vulnerable person without getting even very very basic facts on the nature of group abuse. I see that as aggressive, quite frankly.
   
   Paul Simon is a good writer who tends to use cliches in his music, rhetoric to the contrary. that is, he avoids 'standard' expressions but he describes 'standard' feelings. He's made some good music, but he tends to be very unfocused and vague. that means that it is EXCEEDINGLY difficult to discern his point, beyond the obvious cliche, and then conventional morality is reinforced.
   
   Paul Simon repeated that error in his musical. it is very very VERY VERY VERY cliched to "write" something about a disabled protagonist and then make him or her silent b/c what you are writing is actually about - YOU.
   
   the vast majority of "inspirational" literature on the disabled contains this error. and I can tell you that that is something that makes many of us disabled people very angry. eventually we learn to be resigned and tune it out.
   
   I am doing a compare-and-contrast here though b/c I think to understand how good this book is, it is necessary to understand that the musical was very badly done.
   
   Richard Jacoby showed Agron as a real person. a person who had intelligence and morality as well as the effects of severe abuse and neglect, and there was some sort of disability that seemed to be poorly understood.
   
   This is an excellent book. b/c Agron was not a Suffering Martyr either, although he did suffer far too much. He was a human being.
   
   His humanity is captured here.
   
   Richard Jacoby works with severely disabled children who are often speechless. This is an experience he understands. He understands the need to respect our speech when we can offer it, and not put words in our mouths.
   
   which Paul Simon did by literally xeroxing Agron's letters to Jacoby and crossing things out and rewriting them. that is, marking up his copies. as if Simon were back in college English class and Agron was just another student.
   
   that was a scene that turned my stomach. Jacoby is very charitable towards Simon in this book. I am glad he got it published.
   
   I want to say as someone who has been very disabled for a long time, we know who our friends are. it may not always seem like it but in the end we figure it out :)
   
   Jacoby is a compassionate person and I am very glad Agron knew *him* and not Paul Simon. :)



5. I picked up the book a little skeptically, even though I admire the author, because I was afraid it might glorify a murderer. Richard Jacoby has a simpler goal. He humanizes the Capeman and makes him understandable.
   
   The Capeman was a 16 year old involved in a gangfight in which he stabbed two other teenagers and they died. Sentenced to death, Governor Rockerfeller commuted the sentence under heavy pressure.
   
   Meantime, Richard Jacoby was doing a thesis about whether people on death row had life changing experiences. He got in touch with the Capeman, letters were exchanged, then they met in person and a deep friendship started. The author also got to know the Capeman's family very well. The original goal was for the Capeman to write his life story, but as it becomes clear, after he's paroled that he won't really do it, Jaocby uses all of his notes to put the story together.
   
   Meantime, Paul Simon wrote a musical based on parts of the Capeman's life. It's a story of redemption, but to Richard, that's only part of the story. He uses this book to tell the whole story, not just about the Capeman's life, but about our prison system and about our insane asylums. He's very careful to let the fact's speak for themselves.
   
   The biggest surprise is how hard the book is to put down. You get inside the head of the Capeman and his relatives and his story becomes an American story and yet, still a very individualized story. The book can perhaps best be summed up by Jacoby's encounter with a racist cop, where, referring to the Capeman, he tells the cop "Yeah, but he's still a human being" At it's most basic, that's what the book is about. Without glossing over his crimes, Jacoby shows us the Capeman as a human being. It's a moving, well balanced portrait that is completely compelling reading. Highly Recommended.

No comments about A Nicaraguan Family (Journey Between Two Worlds).

No comments about Maria De Sautuola: The Bulls in the Cave (Remarkable Children Series, 2).

1 comments about Remembering Cesar: The Legacy of Cesar Chavez.

1. The late Cesar Chavez was a migrant farmworker by birth and by trade. His formal education ended after the eight grade. He never owned a house. He didn't own a car. He never made more than $6,000 a year. This quiet and unobtrusive man took hold of the migrant laborer union movement and inspired it to success against the farm owners and agribusiness interests so historically hostile to the union movement. Compiled by Ann McGregor and enhanced with photographs by George Elfie Ballis, Remembering Cesar: The Legacy Of Cesar Chavez is a fitting memorial and tribute to the man and his legacy. Composed of first hand accounts by 45 men and women those who knew Chavez best, we find a man who was uncommonly complex; who despite his limited formal education went on to become very well-red in his later life; who was both driven and focuses, humble and empathetic; and exceedingly principled. Remembering Cesar his a highly recommended biographical portrait recommended for students of the American labor movement, and the continuing struggle of the American farmworker for honest recognition, fair compensation, decent working conditions, and a better life for themselves and their children.

5 comments about The Fight in the Fields: Cesar Chavez and the Farmworkers Movement.

1. The authors did a great job of detailing the early childhood that shaped the future leader of the farm workers movement. They also do a great job of highlighting the trails, ups and downs of Cesar Chavez and the farm workers movement. One gets a good idea of just how bad conditions were before the movement and how much improvement has been made since the inception of the movement. It also touches the heart with the human aspect of the lives that were shackled in the old system and changed for the good with the reforms that were won. Cesar Chavez is a true humanitarian that should be mentioned with the likes of Martin Luther King and Gandhi. This is truly a must read.



2. This is a well written book and is fun to read.



3. "The Fight in the Fields" compelled me to recognize that Cesar Chavez is arguably the greatest humanitarian in US history. He tirelessly and peacefully campaigned on behalf of underpaid and overworked farmworkers and migrants who were forced to toil amidst toxic insecticides and pesticides. Chavez was profoundly influenced by Gandhi, Martin Luther King and St. Francis of Assisi. He was an environmentalist, a vegetarian and animal welfare advocate who denounced dogfighting, bullfighting, cockfighting, slaughterhouses and rodeos because they are all rooted in inhumane violence. Cesar Chavez had reverence for all life and was a paragon of compassion. He was known as America's Catholic Ghandi of the Fields. The United States should have a national Holiday for Cesar Chavez's birthday, specifically, March 31.



4. "the fight in the fields" is an excellent biographical account of cesar chavez and the farmworkers movement. it's a must read for anyone interested in making a difference.



5. At a time when the Mexican-US border is rife with contention, one needs some inspiration for unity and dialogue. The Fight in the Fields: Cesar Chavez and the Farm Workers Movement by Susan Ferriss and Ricardo Sandoval provides that inspiration. The book chronicles how Chavez, over almost a half-century of activism, used nonviolent tactics to promote unity among and justice for California's, and eventually the nation's, oppressed farm workers. Through his crusade, Chavez secured unionization for the US's farm workers and began the movement for Chicano rights. Although the book has its shortcomings, it offers a wonderful and inspiring picture of the farm worker's movement in the United States and Cesar Chavez's leading role.
   Cesar Chavez's origins and experiences illuminate his later call to lead a nationwide movement. He was born Cesar Estrada Chavez on March 21, 1927 on his family's farm in Yuma, Arizona. There he lived an idyllic life learning the teachings of Catholicism until 1938 when the Great Depression forced the Chavez family to sell their land and move to California. There, Chavez experienced first-hand the brutal work, meager wages, and destitute conditions suffered by nonunionized migrant farm workers as well as the intense discrimination suffered by Chicanos. Chavez married Helen Fabela in 1948 and eventually settled in the impoverished barrio Sal Si Puedes ("Leave if you can.") in San Jose. In Sal Si Puedes, Chavez met two men who would become his greatest role models. Father Donald McDonnell taught Chavez the doctrines of Catholic Social Teaching, especially the labor-related encyclicals of Pope Leo XIII. Fred Ross recruited Chavez to work advocating for Chicano rights with the Community Service Organization. In 1962, however, Chavez left CSO to devote himself to a lifelong dream inspired by his time as a farm laborer: unionizing migrant farm workers.
   In 1962, shortly after leaving CSO, Chavez and his family moved to Delano, California, where built the National Farm Worker's Association from the ground up. In 1965, after three years of slowly collecting membership, the association voted to join members of the Agricultural Worker's Organizing Committee in a strike of California vineyards. Soon Chavez, most famously under the banner of the United Farm Workers Union (a merger of the NFWA and AWOC), became the leader of la causa, a nationwide movement for farm worker's rights. He, along with activists like Dolores Huerta, organized migrant farm workers in initiatives like the famous nationwide California table grape boycott of the late 1960's, the lettuce strikes of the 1970's, and the anti-pesticide grape boycott of the 1980's. Throughout his organizing, Chavez, still a devout Catholic strengthened by his family's and Father McDonnell's teachings, remained staunchly nonviolent, fasting whenever violence crept into picket lines. A proponent of creative nonviolent action, Chavez, well-trained by Fred Ross, organized ingenious tactics like praying where picketing was forbidden, holding mass perigrinaciones (pilgrimages) and even mailing squashed grapes to prominent politicians. Chavez also devoted time to political activism, securing the creation of the California Agricultural Labor Relations Board in 1976. Further, inspired by the discrimination he faced as a child, he promoted Chicano culture (while always promoting unity among different farm worker nationalities) establishing newspapers like the Malcriado and theater initiatives like Teatro Campesino. Chavez was remembered fondly upon his death in 1993 as the focal point of the Chicano farm worker's movement.
   Fight in the Fields, the companion volume to a television series of the same name, paints a wonderfully creative picture of Chavez's life and legacy. The narrative thoroughly details Chavez's life, from birth to untimely death. The book features hundreds of photographs from Chavez's life that provide a useful visual reference for readers and illuminate the suffering and challenges faced during la causa. The volume also features several insets that consist of actual documents and articles authored by people active in la causa, whether on Chavez's or the opposing side. They provide a firsthand look into the visceral feelings and opinions of those involved in the farm worker's movement and are interesting reads for history buffs, like myself, who are fascinated by contextual documents.
   Fight in the Fields further succeeds by emphasizing the people in Chavez's life. Often, accounts of larger-than-life figures like Chavez focus on the figure him or herself and his or her magnanimous deeds. Little attention is paid to his or her influences or influence on others. Fight in the Fields features quotes from interviews with dozens of figures close to Chavez. The interviews of those who influenced Chavez really get to the heart of what drove him to action. In addition, the book profiles over a dozen organizers Chavez took under his wing. He loved to find young, poorly educated (though possessed of infinite creativity and potential) farm workers and presenting them with seemingly impossible challenges (as Ross had done for him). I thoroughly enjoyed the book's emphasis on these young organizers because it demonstrates that, with a little training and hard work, all can advocate for nonviolent change.
   Despite its excellent qualities, Fight in the Fields has shortcomings. The narrative is often repetitive and almost always confusing. However, the book's content more than makes up for its poorly written narrative. Furthermore, the book leaves the reader on a negative note. The last quarter of the volume is entirely devoted to the difficulties the UFW experienced in the years before Chavez's death. Almost all of the young organizers Chavez honed left the union which itself faced many defeats in the late 1980's and early 1990's. The book emphasizes these defeats with a negative and dispiriting tone. I would rather have read more about the UFW's triumphs during this time or read the setbacks presented in a more positive tone.
   Fight in the Fields left me with two conflicting emotions: inspiration and discouragement. The story of Chavez's ability to single-handedly build a union among transitory, oppressed workers who had no sense of their rights was inspiring. Chavez's story provided me with an example of success amongst impossible odds to look to when I encounter trouble with my initiatives on my college campus. My job is exponentially easier than Chavez's and his creativity and passion (along with the specific logistics of his organizing detailed in the book) motivated me. Furthermore, with the rift between white Americans and Chicanos and Mexican immigrants dug larger every day by contentious issues such as bilingual education and illegal immigration, learning about a movement that united Americans from all backgrounds to work on behalf of minority rights offered me a sense of hope. All should remember Cesar and his commitment to unity rather than division, friendship rather than hate, and dialogue rather than stony anger. However, the near-dissolution of the UFW before Chavez's death left me discouraged. The mass movement a charismatic leader devoted his life to creating easily began fragmented. How on earth can something I build in my spare time survive? The book has certainly led me to want to learn more about la causa and what went wrong at the end.
   Fight in the Fields is, all and all, a good read for the aspiring activist. It provides creative inspiration in the story of Cesar Chavez, the man who turned his life's dream into la causa. If you are already interested in Chavez or, like I did, know nothing about him, this book paints a great picture of his life. However, beware the discouragement presented at the end.

No comments about Carlos Santana (The Great Hispanic Heritage).

No comments about Futbolistas/ Soccer Players: El Club De Los 100 Latinos/ The Club of the 100 Latinos.