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Harvest of Empire: A History of Latinos in America by Juan Gonzalez
The first new edition in ten years of this important study of Latinos in U.S. history, Harvest of Empire spans five centuries-from the first New World colonies to the first decade of the new millennium. Latinos are now the largest minority group in the United States, and their impact on American popular culture-from food to entertainment to literature-is greater than ever. Featuring family portraits of real- life immigrant Latino pioneers, as well as accounts of the events and conditions that compelled them to leave their homelands, Harvest of Empire is required reading for anyone wishing to understand the history and legacy of this increasingly influential group.
The Warmth of Other Suns: The epic story of America's great migration by Isabel Wilkerson
In this critically acclaimed, modern classic of narrative nonfiction, three young people set out on a perilous journey out of the Jim Crow South to the North and West in search of what the novelist Richard Wright called "the warmth of other suns."
How to be an Antiracist by Ibram X. Kendi
The book discusses concepts of racism and Kendi's proposals for anti-racist individual actions and systemic changes.
Undoing Racism through Social Work
As our nation turns more attention to addressing its long history of systemic racism, the National Association of Social Workers acknowledges that our profession has not always lived up to its mission of pursuing social justice for all. We apologize for supporting policies and activities that harm people of color and we will strengthen our efforts to end racism in the social work profession and in society. We hope this first report demonstrates NASW's commitment to racial equity and invite your feedback on our progress at socialworkers.org/Racial-Equity.
Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Maturity Index
A website dedicated to educational resources related to cultural competency, implicit bias, microaggresions, and social justice.
Narratives by and About Asians and Asian Americans
Selections from the Diversity Center Library of highly acclaimed contemporary literature by and about Asian and Asian American authors. The books represent nearly a quarter of the 51 countries and territories of Asia, earth's largest and most populous continent. Intersectionality, coming of age, the precariousness of forced displacement, and layered cultural identity are some of the themes explored in the books in this collection.
Research Methods for Racial Equity & Cultural Responsiveness
Research articles that address current thinking on ways to help ensure racial and ethnic equity and cultural responsiveness across all stages of the research process with minoritized groups.
Advancing Intersectionality Through Art and Science
Resources that address integrating art and science to advance issues of intersectionality and the broader betterment of society.
White Fragility by Robin DiAngelo
Examining how "good" white people can identify their own racism and offers suggestions about how to relate more constructively.
Long Time Coming by Michael Eric Dyson
Tracing the roots of racism with the hope of breaking through the racist system.
Ten Ways to Create Racially Equitable Learning Environments
10 approaches that social work programs and colleges are using to create racially equitable learning environments in ways that support the missions of their institutions.
Launch of the Center Library on Diversity and Justice
Center Library on Diversity and Justice providing an extensive collection of contemporary books curated by director, Dr. Yolanda Padilla. The Center Library includes memoirs, ethnographies, novels, graphic novels, and science fiction/fantasy titles.
Free-Choice Reading in Foundation Courses
Course methods and activities that help students forge connections between experiences chronicled in books they choose, assigned readings, and practice. Free-choice book reading gives students more autonomy and control over their learning while also encouraging them to grapple with structural factors that shape social welfare systems.
Pleasures of a Tangled Life by Jan Morris
The writer offers an anecdotal memoir of her colorful life, relating her adventures, friendship, controversial sex-change operation, and journey to self-discovery.
The Autobiography of Malcom X as told by Alex Haley
In the searing pages of this classic autobiography, originally published in 1964, Malcolm X, the Muslim leader, firebrand, and anti-integrationist, tells the extraordinary story of his life and the growth of the Black Muslim movement. His fascinating perspective on the lies and limitations of the American Dream, and the inherent racism in a society that denies its nonwhite citizens the opportunity to dream, gives extraordinary insight into the most urgent issues of our own time. The Autobiography of Malcolm X stands as the definitive statement of a movement and a man whose work was never completed but whose message is timeless. It is essential reading for anyone who wants to understand America.
I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou
"Here is a book as joyous and painful, as mysterious and memorable, as childhood itself. I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings captures the longing of lonely children, the brute insult of bigotry, and the wonder of words that can make the world right. Maya Angelou's debut memoir is a modern American classic beloved worldwide. Sent by their mother to live with their devout, self-sufficient grandmother in a small Southern town, Maya and her brother, Bailey, endure the ache of abandonment and the prejudice of the local "powhitetrash." At eight years old and back at her mother's side in St. Louis, Maya is attacked by a man many times her ageand has to live with the consequences for a lifetime. Years later, in San Francisco, Maya learns that love for herself, the kindness of others, her own strong spirit, and the ideas of great authors ("I met and fell in love with William Shakespeare") will allow her to be free instead of imprisoned. Poetic and powerful, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings will touch hearts and change minds for as long as people read."
Long Way Down by Jason Reynolds
An ode to Put the Damn Guns Down, this is New York Times bestselling author Jason Reynolds's electrifying novel that takes place in sixty potent secondsthe time it takes a kid to decide whether or not he's going to murder the guy who killed his brother.
Dear Martin by Nic Stone
Description: "Justyce McAllister is a good kid, an honor student, and always there to help a friendbut none of that matters to the police officer who just put him in handcuffs. Despite leaving his rough neighborhood behind, he can't escape the scorn of his former peers or the ridicule of his new classmates. Justyce looks to the teachings of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. for answers. But do they hold up anymore? He starts a journal to Dr. King to find out. Then comes the day Justyce goes driving with his best friend, Manny, windows rolled down, music turned upway up, sparking the fury of a white off-duty cop beside them. Words fly. Shots are fired. Justyce and Manny are caught in the crosshairs. In the media fallout, it's Justyce who is under attack."
Dear Justyce by Nic Stone
"An unflinching look into the tragically flawed practices and silenced voices in the American juvenile justice system. Vernell LaQuan Banks and Justyce McAllister grew up a block apart in the Southwest Atlanta neighborhood of Wynwood Heights. Years later, though, Justyce walks the illustrious halls of Yale University . . . and Quan sits behind bars at the Fulton Regional Youth Detention Center. Through a series of flashbacks, vignettes, and letters to Justyce--the protagonist of Dear Martin--Quan's story takes form. Troubles at home and misunderstandings at school give rise to police encounters and tough decisions. But then there's a dead cop and a weapon with Quan's prints on it. What leads a bright kid down a road to a murder charge? Not even Quan is sure."
Free Food for Millionaires by Min Jin Lee
"Meet Casey Han: a strong-willed, Queens-bred daughter of Korean immigrants immersed in a glamorous Manhattan lifestyle she can't afford. Casey is eager to make it on her own, away from the judgements of her parents' tight-knit community, but she soon finds that her Princeton economics degree isn't enough to rid her of ever-growing credit card debt and a toxic boyfriend. When a chance encounter with an old friend lands her a new opportunity, she's determined to carve a space for herself in a glittering world of privilege, power, and wealth-but at what cost? Set in a city where millionaires scramble for the free lunches the poor are too proud to accept, this sharp-eyed epic of love, greed, and ambition is a compelling portrait of intergenerational strife, immigrant struggle, and social and economic mobility. Addictively readable, Min Jin Lee's bestselling debut Free Food for Millionaires exposes the intricate layers of a community clinging to its old ways in a city packed with haves and have-nots."
Pachinko by Min Jin Lee
"In the early 1900s, teenaged Sunja, the adored daughter of a crippled fisherman, falls for a wealthy stranger at the seashore near her home in Korea. He promises her the world, but when she discovers she is pregnant--and that her lover is married--she refuses to be bought. Instead, she accepts an offer of marriage from a gentle, sickly minister passing through on his way to Japan. But her decision to abandon her home, and to reject her son's powerful father, sets off a dramatic saga that will echo down through the generations. Richly told and profoundly moving, Pachinko is a story of love, sacrifice, ambition, and loyalty. From bustling street markets to the halls of Japan's finest universities to the pachinko parlors of the criminal underworld, Lee's complex and passionate characters--strong, stubborn women, devoted sisters and sons, fathers shaken by moral crisis--survive and thrive against the indifferent arc of history."
Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi
Homegoing follows the parallel paths of these sisters and their descendants through eight generations: from the Gold Coast to the plantations of Mississippi, from the American Civil War to Jazz Age Harlem. Yaa Gyasi's extraordinary novel illuminates slavery's troubled legacy both for those who were taken and those who stayedand shows how the memory of captivity has been inscribed on the soul of our nation.
Here Comes the Sun by Nicole Dennis-Benn
Capturing the distinct rhythms of Jamaican life and dialect, Nicole Dennis- Benn pens a tender hymn to a world hidden among pristine beaches and the wide expanse of turquoise seas. At an opulent resort in Montego Bay, Margot hustles to send her younger sister, Thandi, to school. Taught as a girl to trade her sexuality for survival, Margot is ruthlessly determined to shield Thandi from the same fate. When plans for a new hotel threaten their village, Margot sees not only an opportunity for her own financial independence but also perhaps a chance to admit a shocking secret: her forbidden love for another woman. As they face the impending destruction of their community, each woman―fighting to balance the burdens she shoulders with the freedom she craves―must confront long-hidden scars. From a much-heralded new writer, Here Comes the Sun offers a dramatic glimpse into a vibrant, passionate world most outsiders see simply as paradise.
Patsy by Nicole Dennis-Benn
Heralded for writing "deeply memorable . . . women" (Jennifer Senior, New York Times), Nicole Dennis-Benn introduces readers to an unforgettable heroine for our times: the eponymous Patsy, who leaves her young daughter behind in Jamaica to follow Cicely, her oldest friend, to New York. Beating with the pulse of a long-withheld confession and peppered with lilting patois, Patsy gives voice to a woman who looks to America for the opportunity to love whomever she chooses, bravely putting herself first. But to survive as an undocumented immigrant, Patsy is forced to work as a nanny, while back in Jamaica her daughter, Tru, ironically struggles to understand why she was left behind. Greeted with international critical acclaim from readers who, at last, saw themselves represented in Patsy, this astonishing novel "fills a literary void with compassion, complexity and tenderness" (Joshunda Sanders, Time), offering up a vital portrait of the chasms between selfhood and motherhood, the American dream and reality.
Wayward Lives, Beautiful Experiments: Intimate Histories of Riotous Black Girls, Troublesome Women, and Queer Radicals by Saidiya Hartman
"Beautifully written and deeply researched, Wayward Lives, Beautiful Experiments examines the revolution of black intimate life that unfolded in Philadelphia and New York at the beginning of the twentieth century. In wrestling with the question of what a free life is, many young black women created forms of intimacy and kinship indifferent to the dictates of respectability and outside the bounds of law. They cleaved to and cast off lovers, exchanged sex to subsist, and revised the meaning of marriage. Longing and desire fueled their experiments in how to live. They refused to labor like slaves or to accept degrading conditions of work. Here, for the first time, these women are credited with shaping a cultural movement that transformed the urban landscape. Through a melding of history and literary imagination, Wayward Lives, Beautiful Experiments recovers these women's radical aspirations and insurgent desires.
67 black and white illustrations"
Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents by Isabel Wilkerson
Poetically written and brilliantly researched, Caste invites us to discover the inner workings of an American hierarchy that goes far beyond the confines of race, class, or gender.