Central America Books

The struggle by blacks to obtain their civil rights in Florida is not well-known. In fact, many have seen blacks' efforts to obtain their civil rights there as weak and ineffectual after the Civil War only becoming powerful after World War I. Paul Ortiz supports his theme that blacks, in fact, engaged in generations-long efforts to force whites to recognize their basic civil rights by showing all of the methods they used to combat white racism and violence. He shows that blacks used organized groups as their most effective tool, including secret societies, lodges, churches, labor unions, black veterans' posts and women's groups to battle white racism and violence. Too, black women took a key role not only within most of these groups but also by individual efforts. By his employment of personal accounts including oral histories and personal interviews, as well as many other primary and secondary sources, he gives an in-depth account of the history of the continuous struggle by African-Americans for civil rights in Florida from antebellum times to the election of 1920.

Ortiz begins by showing that many blacks fled to the Spanish-owned colony of Florida prior to 1763 when it came under British rule. Escaped slaves, many from the British Carolinas, helped the Spanish fight against British forces then joined with Seminole Indians to battle United States militia or federal troops seeking to recapture escaped slaves and displace the Indians. Many escaped slaves settled in Gracie Real de Santa Teresa de Mose (Fort Mose), the first all black settlement in the future United States. This organized settlement showed that blacks must form groups for effective self protection and for mutual aid.

After regaining Florida from Britain following Britain's defeat in the American Revolution, Spain ceded it to the United States in 1819; it became a state in 1845. Before becoming a state, U.S. armed forces engaged in three wars resulting in the removal of most Seminole Indians and decreasing Florida's attraction as a haven for runaway slaves. Violence against blacks in Florida had its beginnings in these and earlier vicious battles. However, escaped slaves early use of Florida a destination was a precursor of later black attempts for freedom.

During the early Civil War, escaped slaves made desperate efforts to escape to Union ships and to Union lines and later many slaves joined the Union military to fight their former owners. After the largest battle in Florida at Olustee, some Confederate soldiers killed black Union prisoners continuing the legacy of violence against blacks and presaging the violence found during the generations following the war. But experience as soldiers fighting for their freedom helped many blacks after the war as they were forced to take up arms to defend themselves and fellow blacks.

After the war, blacks hoped that in addition to emancipation, they would find unfettered access to farmland, jobs, public schools and the right to vote. However, Reconstruction gave only limited success obtaining these goals but one of the most important was the formation of religious and other mutual aid groups for support. These early efforts at organizing were begun to counter the violence and terror whites employed to resubjugate the newly freed blacks.

Some of the early post Civil War groups promoted solidarity among blacks by celebrating Emancipation Day each January 1, and by having organized ceremonies honoring veterans. Other activities maintained and promoted black history of contributions blacks made to the U.S. including those made in the Revolutionary and Civil Wars. In addition, efforts were made to ensure that memories of the horrors of slavery were not forgotten during these ceremonies. Black groups pursued every avenue in their quest to fight white domination and terrorism. Unions organized strikes and other actions to try to get better wages and working conditions as well as respect on the job. Churches and women's groups organized successful boycotts such as against segregated public transit during the streetcar boycotts in several Florida cities. Secret societies not only fostered mutual aid and respect but like many of the other groups provided for decent burials for their members and support for those who were ill.

Many blacks were often members of more than one group, e.g., one could be a member of a church, a union and a secret organization simultaneously. Ad hoc committees and groups were sometimes formed in response to volatile situations as in armed black responses to white vigilantes. As blacks made concerted efforts to enforce their suffrage rights under the 15th (and later the 19th) amendment, these already organized groups were immediately available as organizing centers and made them the logical places to which blacks could turn. They served as bases for political action groups since only through politics could blacks fight local, state and federal white racism as the established groups created spaces within which these new efforts could form and grow.

These groups were the fundamental bodies which formed black culture and society in Florida and when combined with the extraordinary efforts of black women, they were in the forefront of black resistance to white tyranny. Ortiz successfully shows that these groups were engaged for generations fighting against white racism and terror with more or less effect. The culmination of the various groups' efforts was the remarkable efforts made in the 1920 elections. Blacks were recruited, registered, and then escorted to polling locations but due to the pervasive efforts of whites including pervasive use of violence and intimidation through the KKK and local law enforcement authorities, opening of mail to detect black plans, unfair enforcement of election laws, poll taxes, and black vigilante actions, their efforts failed. Despite this failure the progress made by these groups and women in general was remarkable.

There are so many stereotypes perpetrated by mainstream history, especially when it comes to the facts surrounding the road to black freedom in Jim Crow America.

Paul Ortiz uses oral history, reseach of documents and investigative skills to write an outstanding book on the heroic work of blacks in challenging the white power structure in Florida from reconstruction to the bloody violence surrounding the 1920 election.

The white politicians in Florida used a variety of tools in attempting keep the black population in a subserviant position. These included terror and lynching, working with northern businesses and unions to cap the number of blacks leaving the state for better job opportunities and using the judicial system to have a pool of cheap labor sitting in jails.

Through it all, leaders from all walks of life emerged in the black community. Ortiz explains the various aspects surrounding the birth of black organizing and the small victories from boycotts, self-defense groups and other means to achieve the goal of having full rights under the law.

It ultimately centers on the right to vote and how the white power structure used every tool in its Jim Crow arsenal in 1920 to try and break the will of blacks and destoy the ever-expanding civil rights movement.

A time in U.S. History avoided in most books covering this time period, Ortiz again demonstrates that those who forget the past can never set a true course in the future. Emancipation Betrayed is an important book for those seeking the truth surrounding this nation in a proper historical context.

Any history book by Kevin Starr is worth reading. I'm working my way through all of them. He is the greatest California historian ever!

Kevin Starr has created a brilliant picture of California in an eventful decade. I need not add to the summaries Amazon has above; I can say that Starr's writing is vivid and sweeping and he manages to place all the events and social evolution in perspective.

And I found material that was still fresh, even given my own background as a consumer of history and as a lifetime Californian. The impact of wartime shipbuilding and aviation industry on California's sleepy economy and postwar prosperity; the zoot-suit riots and what they revealed about California's race problems; the bar and nightlife scenes in SF and LA; the Legislature's mover-fixer Artie Samish and his downfall; the noirish Black Dahlia murder in a time when Hollywood was discovering film noir. Indeed, Mr. Starr illuminates the last one by pointing out Hollywood's mingling with the LA underworld and with some of the rougher LAPD detectives.

It's true that Starr may have crowded his canvas somewhat, but he is adept at fitting them together and presenting them as one epic transformation in the state's history. Given the impact that California's major social upheavals have had for the US and the wider world -- the Gold Rush, Silicon Valley, the dot-com boom -- this book, and this period, is well worth a read.

High school senior Emily Goldberg has a perfect summer planned, the highlight of which is a cross-country road trip with her two best friends before they head off to separate colleges. But her plans are drastically altered when her maternal grandmother dies suddenly and Emily's family must fly to Puerto Rico to attend the funeral. Emily experiences culture shock when she finds herself in a crowded Catholic church with hundreds of relatives she didn't even know she had, including a cousin her own age named Lucy. When Emily's mother decides to remain in Puerto Rico for the rest of the summer to cope with her grief, Emily can't refuse her father's request that she stay with her. Feeling like an outsider (and the Jew from New York whom cousin Lucy refers to as "the nuyorican,"), Emily intends to quietly suffer through two months in a world so different from her own. But when Emily's mother finally opens up about her long unspoken past, Emily begins to reach out to her new relatives, and discovers the importance of connecting to both sides of her heritage. Emily's voice is authentic and witty, and her thoughts and observations will ring true with teens. Spanish words and phrases pepper the dialogue throughout this engaging novel. Ages 12-16.

It's the summer after her senior year, right before she and her friends split up for college, and Emily Goldberg has plans. A road trip across the country with her best friends, Izzy and Adrienne. Hanging out with her boyfriend, Nate, and maybe figuring out what they're going to do at the end of the summer. But whatever else they may have held, her plans definitely hadn't included standing in a hot, crowded funeral home in a country she'd never been in, at the funeral for a grandmother she'd never met. EMILY GOLDBERG LEARNS TO SALSA is a funny, heartwarming story about family and roots, and how learning about them can teach you about yourself.

Emily's mother is from Puerto Rico, but she'd left for college, met and married Emily's father, and never gone back. Emily's never met her grandmother, or her many aunts, uncles, and cousins, until she's forced to go down to Puerto Rico for the funeral. But at least it's only for a few days...until her mother has some sort of crisis and Emily is forced to stay with her.

Sharing a bedroom with her mother, stuck in a country where she barely speaks the language, and living in her ultra-religious Tia Rosa's house with an impossible set of rules, Emily is not looking forward to the rest of the summer. It doesn't help that her cousin Lucy thinks she's a pampered princess from the mainland, and that her boyfriend back home isn't returning her calls. But readers will laugh as she's thrust into one uncomfortable situation after another. Salsa dancing for a girl with two left feet? Cooking with lard? Driving in a country with no street signs? Emily faces them all, slowly getting dragged out of the safe world she's built for herself and connecting with the family she'd never known she'd missed.

Ostow writes with an authentic teenage voice, in clear and uncluttered prose. Her descriptions of a country unfamiliar to many of her readers will fascinate and intrigue them. Writing with respect for a culture different from that of the United States isn't easy, but Ostow pulls it off with style, drawing on her personal experiences. Recommended for readers looking for a fun and enjoyable read.

Reviewed by: Dena Landon

A refreshingly varied and up-to-date coverage of areas of American culture that have been impacted significantly by Jews.

Collaboratively compiled and co-edited by Stephen H. Norwood and Eunice G. Pollack, the "Encyclopedia Of American Jewish History" is a two volume compendium of information covering every aspect of more than three and a half centuries of Jewish immigrants and their descendants with respect to their influence and impact upon American culture -- as well as the Jewish communities elsewhere in the world. Here detailed are the seminal contributions of Jewish Americans to academia, the arts, politics, the professions, the sciences, music, and American popular culture in general. Enhanced throughout, this two volume set features essays, maps, documents, tables, charts, and a thoroughly 'reader friendly' text that makes it especially appropriate and strongly recommended for school as well as community library Judaic Studies and American History reference collections.

This book is for all who have an interest in Women's Studies, American History or the West. Not only for libraries, this book makes an awesome addition to any home collection as well.

Compiled and co-edited by Gordon Morris Bakken (Professor of History, California State University, Fullerton) and Brenda Farmington (Adjunct Faculty Member, Long Beach City College), Encyclopedia Of Women In The American West is a scholarly reference studying the often-overlooked lives and roles of women on the American frontier. Alphabetical entries offer succinct summaries of great figures, events, situations, facets of daily duties, and more. A highly educational and enlightening resource, the Encyclopedia Of Women In The American West is a core recommendation for academic and public library American Western History Studies and Women's Studies reference collections, as well as an invaluable resource for writers and non-specialist general readers with an interest in studying women's experiences and contributions to American society and culture.

Since 1965 the United States has been in the midst of a most profound demographic transformation. The non-European immigrant population has increased dramatically and by 1997 approximately 55 million people (20.5 percent) of the total U.S. population were foreign-born. These newcomers are concentrated in California, Florida, Texas, and New York/New Jersey. To study these important demographic and social changes to the foundation of the American landscape, Alejandro Portes and Ruben Rumbaut began in 1990 to follow 5, 262 students enrolled in the eighth and ninth grades in Southern California and Southern Florida. Students were eligible to enter the Children of Immigrants Longitudinal Study (CILS) if they were U.S. born but had at least one foreign-born parent (second generation) or if they themselves were foreign-born and had come to the U.S. at an early age (before age 12) (1.5 generation). Five years later in 1995-1996 a second survey of the same group of children was conducted-- this time supplemented by separate-in-depth interviews with a large sample of their parents. The purpose of this follow-up effort, which succeeded in re-interviewing 82 percent of the baseline sample, was to ascertain changes over time in their family situation, school achievement, educational and occupational aspirations, language use and preferences, ethnic identities, experiences and expectations of discrimination, and psycho-social adjustment.
The outcome of this research was two volumes-- one entitled: Legacies: The Story of the Immigrant Second Generation (2001). This volume focused on the patterns of acculturation, family and school life, language, identity, experiences of discrimination, self-esteem, ambition and achievement. The weakness of this work is that it does not probe very deeply into the importance of ethnicity and how it influences adaptation patterns and trajectories of the children of immigrants. The second volume entitled Ethnicities: Children of Immigrants in America (2001) presents seven individually authored case studies in an attempt to provide a closer look at the adaptation patterns and trajectories of youth from: Cuba, Nicaragua, Vietnam, Haiti, Mexico, Jamaica and other West Indian origins. To undertake this analysis, Rumbaut and Portes brought together a group of scholars who specialize in each of the major immigrant nationalities, made available to them the CILS data set, and invited them to combine their expertise to explain what each group was experiencing
The researchers came to a number of similar conclusions. The first was that second and 1.5 generation acculturation is being aggravated by troubles associated with coming of age in an era far more materialistic and individualistic than those encountered by immigrant children in years gone by. Today's youth often find themselves straddling different worlds and receiving conflicting signals. At home, they hear that they must work hard and do well in school to move up; on the street they learn a different lesson, that of rebellion against authority and rejection of the goals of achievement.
Unlike their European origin predecessors the present second and 1.5 generation is undergoing a process of segmented assimilation in which outcomes vary across immigrant populations and in which rapid integration and acceptance into the American mainstream represent just one possible alternative. A number of factors are decisive in determining this segmented assimilation. They include: (1) the history of the immigrant first generation, including the human capital brought by immigrant parents and the context of their reception; (2) the differential pace of acculturation among parents and children, including the development of language gaps between them; (3) the cultural and economic barriers confronted by second-generation youth in their quest for successful adaptation; and (4) the family and community resources avaliable for confronting these barriers.
Each chapter in Ethnicities: Children of Immigrants in America illustrates how varied the process of assimilation has become. In some instances, such as the Filipinos, a high human capital among immigrant parents combined with a relatively neutral or favorable context of reception produced a rapid mobility into the middle class. In other cases, socio-economic success depends less on advanced educational credentials in the first generation than on the possession of entrepreneurial skills and a favorable context of reception. The diverse Cuban enclave in Miami illustrates this type of assimilation as do the Vietnamese refugees whose positive reception by the U.S. government provided the grounds for reconstruction of families and communities.
In other cases, such as Mexicans, limited professional or entrepreneurial skills among the first generation, an unfavorable government reception, and a hostile societal reception means that their children seldom have the opportunity to assimilate into middle-class American circles but rather have every opportunity to sink into the native poor and underclass. Nicaraguans also face the possibility of downward assimilation because they have met with an unwelcome official reception and severe handicaps in the local labor market. The downward assimilation pattern is also evident among Haitian immigrants in Southern Florida. Hostile governmental reception, a low average human capital among the first generation, and a widespread social and labor market discrimination have produced what is arguably the most impoverished immigrant community in the region. Jamaican and other West Indian immigrants are subject to similar external discrimination, however in their case an unfavorable context of reception is partially balanced by the educational and occupational credentials of many parents, and their fluent (and distinctly accented) English.
Overall, the studies in this book provide an excellent overview of the situation faced by non-European second and 1.5 generation migrants. Rumbaut and Portes have once again established themselves as the leading research team on migration issues in the United States. A reliable source of longitudinal data accounts for the importance and richness of these studies. In addition, as members of the community they studied, many of the authors were able to offer more information or speculation as to the reasons behind the successes or failures of each particular group. In the past, immigrants (or more likely their children) first became ethnics and later plain Americans, today the journey is bumpy for non-white ethnic groups. There is no longer just one America that newcomers enter nor only one American identity that they may adopt. Ethnicities: Children of Immigrants in America highlights these realities and is highly recommend as a primary source to students doing upper level Sociology of Migration or Ethnic Studies courses. Individuals using this book will find helpful tools for understanding how the new non-European second and 1.5 generation immigrants build, remodel, and adapt to their lives in the United States.

This collection of studies by Rumbaut and Portes presents a highly detailed study of immigrant's children in the US from Asia, Latin American and the Caribbean. The studies cover the children's stories at various times while they are growing up making it easy to see how they deal with adolsence and coming of age. It deals with such important issues as educational ambitions, levels of discrimination, language usage (both in English and their parent's language), and relationships with their parents and the larger community around them.

Eric Janus, with a clear mind and precise hand, sets out to lead the call for reasonableness in an era of too eager politcally and socially to respond to "sexual predators" without consideration of the long term impacts of our political and legal tendencies to punish without logic and demonize without understanding the true causes of sexual violence in our everyday lives. This book raises questions about the future of us all as we rush to "fix" a problem we don't really understand and certainly don't want to talk about among ourselves.

It might not seem an inviting task to try to stem the mounting popular tide in favor of ever longer detention, by any means possible, of convicted sexual predators, but Eric Janus has managed to do so in a book that is carefully argued and evinces clearly both his wisdom and his compassion for the victims of crime. In addition to discussing the merits of extended detention of known predators and public monitoring of released sex offenders, treating both trends in the context of the question of how best to prevent sexual violence, Failure to Protect also takes up two larger social questions: why we are so focused on the "worst of the worst;" and our apparent willingness to trade civil liberties for safety (or the illusion of safety).

The book is astonishingly well written. It is lucidly organized into chapters and sections; you always know where you are in the argument. The prose is as elegant and clear as the reasoning is strong, free of the jargon that might so easily have marred a book on this subject. The punctuation and footnoting deserve commendation, as they unobtrusively guide the flow and document the argument. Rarely these days does any author get every detail of writing so right. Even the production gives evidence of unhurried care, with next to no misprints.

This is a great book for young children. Excellent first book for teaching kids about another county. I enjoyed the book very much and I am an adult! It offers lots of nice color photographs and discusses everyday life of the typical Guatemala family.

This is a great book for young children. Excellent first book for teaching kids about another county. I enjoyed the book very much and I am an adult! It offers lots of nice color photographs and discusses everyday life of the typical Guatemala family.

This book is a bit dense, but full of great information that is extremely useful for those interested in American rural life during the Progressive Era and World War I. Fry's writing style is informative and straight-forward, and the book is nicely divided into accessible partitions so readers can absorb specialized information over a period of time.

I highly recommend it!

This is not a review. I wrote the book, and I wanted to let you know what it is about.

My advisor in graduate school used to say there were only two important questions to ask when one undertakes a research project: "what's in and what's out?" and "so what?" Another way to ask the "so what" question is to say, "What will you know more about if you read my book?" Well, I hope that you'll know more about the Farm Press, Rural People, and Country Life Progressivism. The simpler, and more alliterative, way of expressing this would be people, the press, and Progressivism.

If you read my book, you'll learn something about the Midwestern Farm Press. Published in cities such as Chicago, Des Moines, and Saint Louis, farm newspapers were sent to hundreds of thousands of rural homes across the Midwest. In 1920, the Prairie Farmer, published here in Chicago, had a circulation of around one hundred thousand. This was pretty good, considering the number of farms in Illinois was about two hundred thousand. (Pause) Most Midwestern farm newspapers cost $1 a year (between $10 and $20 in today's money, depending on the year between 1895 and 1920). They were published weekly and ranged from 64 to 200 pages an issue, depending on the season. Papers were much longer during the winter, because that's when farmers and their families had leisure to read and look at advertisements. Farm newspapers reached out to all farmers, both rich and poor; all kinds of farmers subscribed, including land owners, renters, and even sharecroppers. A 1913 survey by the USDA revealed that roughly 75% of rural Midwesterners surveyed received at least one farm newspaper. Farm papers reached out to these people by keeping subscription costs low, making special offers, and providing something for every member of the farm family: articles on crop farming and livestock care, editorials about railroad legislation, columns on housekeeping and food preparation, games for the kids, even serialized fiction. So, if you read my book, you'll learn more about the farm press and what it looked like at the turn of the twentieth century.

You'll also learn something about American Progressivism. Progressivism is a difficult movement for historians to describe briefly, but basically it was a loose movement of activists who called for reform of the new American urban and industrial society. Many progressives hoped to transform the new urban centers, like Chicago, in ways that approximated the small town and rural communities in which they had grown up. But some Progressives also had a reform program for the countryside. It was called the Country Life Movement. Country Life Reformers were concerned about life on farms, often because they thought that too many people were leaving for cities. They hoped to change rural life to make it more attractive for young rural men and women, so that they'd stay on the farm. Ironically, this often meant making rural institutions, especially the rural church, the rural school, and rural households, more like their urban counterparts. Since most farm newspapers were published and edited in cities, many of them were influenced by Progressivism. Farm newspapers thus became forums for the discussion of Progressive, Country Life ideas. So if you read the book, I hope you'll learn more than you knew before about Country Life Progressivism.

Finally, if you read the book, you'll learn more about Rural People. You'll learn about the first Henry Wallace, the grandfather of Henry A. Wallace (who became Franklin Delano Roosevelt's Vice President and ran for President in 1948). The first Henry Wallace, or Uncle Henry, as he was known to his readership, was born on a farm in Western Pennsylvania. He left the farm to become a Presbyterian Pastor. He subsequently left the pastorate to return to farming, and ended up as the editor and publisher of Wallaces' Farmer, one of two major farm newspapers published in Des Moines. His concern for farming and his ability to use the Bible in an argument were both showcased in his columns. You'll also learn about Burridge D. Butler, who came to own the Prairie Farmer after running a chain of almost a dozen Midwestern daily newspapers. During the 1920s, Butler also bought the radio station WLS from Sears. But in addition to the publishers and editors of farm newspapers, you'll also learn about their readers. You'll also learn about Lucy Van Voorhis White, a farmer's wife in Dallas County, Iowa, who read Wallace's Farmer for information on better ways to raise chickens. You'll learn about John Campbell Bailey, an immigrant from Northern Ireland who lived near Rock Island, Illinois and read farm newspapers along with Chicago newspapers and Presbyterian magazines. And you'll learn about John Sanborn, a Missouri farmer who turned to reading not only when he was laid up by a broken leg (his horses ran wild and he was run over by the plow), but also when his five year old son, his only son, died of a mysterious sickness. Rural people like White, Bailey, and Sanborn read farm newspapers for information, for entertainment, and for confirmation of their view of the world. They selectively adapted the contents of what they read to their own particular needs. So if you read the book, I hope you'll learn more about Rural People.

Muy bueno, lo recomiendo. Las recetas son muy variadas y simples. Con gusto latino autentico. Incluye recetas Espanolas, Chilenas, Peruanas, Brasilenas, Puerto Riquenas y Venesolanas! Facil de reproducir platos tradicionales con productos encontrados en los Estados Unidos.

If you truly enjoy the flavors of the Mexican culture...this book is for you. The format is clear. The final products taste exactly as you would expect per recipe and required spices. Have a good Margarita. Use the book. Have a memorable dinner!