BibliovoRX: Cinco de Mayo!

Despite what many non-Mexican-Americans believe, Cinco de Mayo isn't Mexican Independence Day.  Mexico actually declared its independence from Spain on September 16th, 1810.  Nor is Cinco de Mayo an American holiday, although many will be celebrating Mexican culture today here in the States.  What Cinco de Mayo commemorates is the day that General Zaragoza led 4,000 Mexican soldiers into battle and dealt a crushing defeat to 8,000 of Emperor Napoleon III's Legionnaires at Puebla, Mexico, in 1862.  This was the first defeat that any of Napoleon's soldiers had suffered in over 50 years.  The defeat kept the French from furnishing the Confederate Army with weapons and supplies for another year, which provided the Union Army with a much needed edge.

Did this one battle in Mexico save the United States of America?  Perhaps not.  But military history is something of a house of cards: when you're missing even one, the whole house looks entirely different.  So rather than go with the disturbing trend of xenophobia endorsed by Tom Perry, Jan Brewer, Tom Tancredo, Pat Buchanan, and others on the right, I'm going to have to go with offering our neighboring country to the south a sincere "Thank you, and happy Cinco de Mayo!"

This batch of books is about all things Mexican-American.  Below, find Chavez and the UFW, luchadores, "mod Mex" cuisine, and the intersectionality of race and mental illness.



If you're looking for a cookbook that hasn't Anglicized its Mexican recipes, try out the food in:
Mod Mex: Cooking Vibrant Fiesta Flavors at Home by Scott Linquist and Joanna Pruess

Yes, this Mexican cookbook was written by two white people.  Know what?  There's a recipe for menudo con pozole on page 80, and while I haven't had the opportunity to do up a batch yet, it looks incredibly tasty.  Linquist, according to the forward, grew up in Southern California as a white kid with many Latino friends.  Through countless meals at friends' homes, and through cooking lessons from his Latino best friend's mother, he became hooked on Mexican food from a young age.  While some of what he wrote about his journey and experiences with Mexican cuisine sounded uncomfortably like cultural appropriation (in the first paragraph of the forward, he says that he's "returned to his Mexican roots"), he's undeniably a gifted chef, and he certainly did his research in preparation for this cookbook.  A word of advice, though: most of the bocaditos, or starters, are made in generous enough portions to qualify as a full meal for four people rather than the appetizer for six that Linquist suggests.  I recommend you start with the Grilled Chicken Tacos Al Carbon with Fresh Orange Salsita, as it's rapidly becoming a favorite around here!  Side effects may include getting a bit rounder around the middle, burning your tongue with chiles, and cultivating a smug sense of superiority about just how good your guacamole tastes.

If you're interested in the history of the UFW and Cesar Chavez's crusade for farm workers' rights, read:
The Union of Their Dreams: Power, Hope, and Struggle in Cesar Chavez's Farm Worker Movement by Miriam Pawel

The story behind the United Farm Workers in America is one that belongs to Latino and Filipino farm workers across California, to the thousands upon thousands of underpaid and overworked men and women whose employers exploited their labor without the slightest qualm.  We remember best that the story of the UFW, and all of the union's landmark achievements on behalf of farm workers, belongs most of all to Cesar Chavez, a farm worker, labor leader, and civil rights activist, whose fight for fair treatment of farm workers turned a burgeoning movement into a fully-fledged union.  But in the focus on the charismatic founder, others crucial to the movement often go forgotten.  In The Union of Their Dreams, Miriam Pawel gives readers an inside look at the strikes and picketing, the bargaining with farm owners that Jerry Cohen undertook, the organization of boycotts in Chicago that Eliseo Medina did, the close relationship that religious leaders like Chris Hartmire played in the movement, and the frustration and anger that came when the original group splintered and turned against one another.  Pawel's book is fascinating and worth reading; while she makes no effort to minimize the damaged relationships and feelings of betrayal that some early UFW members had toward Chavez toward the end of his life, she makes it clear that despite how it ended, Chavez's impressive legacy stands unmarred by union infighting.  Chavez was, above all else, a true visionary and an exceptional human being.  Side effects may include a desire to get involved in community organizing, finding that you have a great deal more appreciation for the people who tend the fruits and vegetables you eat, and (if you previously spoke none) learning a few useful words of Spanish.

If you're a fan of lucha libre and have always wanted to see your favorite luchadores gathered together in one place, take a look at:
Lucha Loco: The Free Wrestlers of Mexico by Malcolm Venville

Aside from the elaborate masks and costumes, lucha libre, or free wrestling, isn't all that different from the WWE in the US: there are heroes and villains, stories of vengeance and redemption, melodrama, and above all the spectacle of the theater.  The audiences who attend the matches or watch them on television have built a relationship with the luchadores.  The wrestlers -- many of whom have day jobs as accountants, dentists, and plumbers, among other professions -- are folk heroes to their working class fans, and role models to the young children who look up to them.   Malcolm Venville, a London-based photographer, went to Mexico City to photograph 128 luchadores.  In Lucha Loco, his photographs, along with the luchadores' wrestling names and snippets from Manuel Manero's interviews with the fighters, offers a unique view into the sport of lucha libre.  Side effects may include a new found interest in lucha libre, a fascination with the bright colors and even more colorful names of the luchadores, and the unavoidable urge to attend a lucha libre wrestling match.

If you'd like to read a superb young adult novel that touches on both racism and mental illness, read:
Border Crossing by Jessica Lee Anderson

Writers are often given the advice, "Write what you know."  It's clear that Jessica Lee Anderson knows Texas.  Her depiction of working class life in the small ranching town of Rockhill is a realistic and unflinching depiction of the tensions that exist between whites and Latinos in border states like Texas, and the tensions that exist between US citizens and Mexican immigrants.  Manz, the biracial son of a Mexican man and a white American woman, has a clear and uncomfortable window into this world -- a world where his white best friend Jed can say overtly racist things to Latinos looking for work in Manz's presence, and wave off Manz's anger by saying "It's just talk."

Anderson also does a fantastic job depicting Manz's anxiety, fear, and paranoia as schizophrenia steadily takes over his life.  The progression of his illness -- from being distracted by shapes and colors to being convinced that everyone he knows is conspiring to deport him to Mexico -- is engrossing.  This is a book that no teenager should miss, and I'd recommend it to adults as well.  Side effects may include googling "intersectionality," redefining what you consider racism, and developing a better understanding of schizophrenia and mental illness.