LatinoLand: A Portrait of America's Largest and Least Understood Minority

by Marie Arana Narrated by Cynthia Farrell

Overview

“A perfect representation of Latino diversity” (The Washington Post), LatinoLand draws from hundreds of interviews and prodigious research to give us both a vibrant portrait and the little-known history of our largest and fastest-growing minority, in “a work of prophecy, sympathy, and courage” (Junot Díaz, Pulitzer Prize-winning author).

LatinoLand is an exceptional, all-encompassing overview of Hispanic America based on personal interviews, deep research, and Marie Arana's life experience as a Latina. At present, Latinos comprise twenty percent of the US population, a number that is growing. By 2050, census reports project that one in every three Americans will claim Latino heritage.

But Latinos are not a monolith. They do not represent a single group. The largest groups are Mexicans, Puerto Ricans, Dominicans, Salvadorans, and Cubans. Each has a different cultural and political background. Puerto Ricans, for example, are US citizens, whereas some Mexican Americans never immigrated because the US-Mexico border shifted after the US invasion of 1848, incorporating what is now the entire southwest of the United States. Cubans came in two great waves: those escaping communism in the early years of Castro, many of whom were professionals and wealthy, and those permitted to leave in the Mariel boat lift twenty years later, representing some of the poorest Cubans, including prisoners.

As LatinoLand shows, Latinos were some of the earliest immigrants to what is now the US-some of them arriving in the 1500s. They are racially diverse-a random infusion of white, Black, indigenous, and Asian. Once overwhelmingly Catholic, they are becoming increasingly Protestant and Evangelical. They range from domestic workers and day laborers to successful artists, corporate CEOs, and US senators. Formerly solidly Democratic, they now vote Republican in growing numbers. They are as culturally varied as any immigrants from Europe or Asia.

Marie Arana draws on her own experience as the daughter of an American mother and Peruvian father who came to the US at age nine, straddling two worlds, as many Latinos do. “Thorough, accessible, and necessary” (Ms. magazine), LatinoLand unabashedly celebrates Latino resilience and character and shows us why we must understand the fastest-growing minority in America.

Editorial Reviews

Candice Millard

Only Marie Arana could hold this infinitely complex, endlessly shifting subject in her mind, and then write a book that explains it all in language that is at the same time dazzlingly vibrant and surgically precise. Latinoland doesn’t just speak, it sings.

Héctor Tobar

Unfolding across four hemispheres and dozens of nations, Marie Arana’s new book is a sweeping, comprehensive, and impassioned introduction to the centuries of history and activism that have given us the term ‘Latino.’

Junot Díaz

In a just world Marie Arana would be everyone’s favorite writer and her monumental LatinoLand would be everyone’s book of the year. Arana has achieved the impossible - she has produced a searching, moving portrait of one of the most misunderstood and singularly important communities in our country. LatinoLand is indispensable, unforgettable. A work of prophecy, sympathy and courage.

The New Yorker - Graciela Mochkofsky

LatinoLand aims to show that Latinos are as essential to the fabric of America as everyone else is, and it does so by deconstructing the most pervasive stereotypes around them.

Julia Alvarez

As a Latina/Latinx/Hispanic/Dominican-America who has lived through six decades of identity iterations and labels on USA soil, I think I know myself and my story pretty well, but Marie Arana's magisterial Latinoland has enlarged my understanding, not just of myself, but of so many of us included under the one identity umbrella of Latinos. Comprehensive, thoroughly researched, balanced, generous and penetrating, Latinoland is destined to become the text we all turn and return to in understanding not just this country but our hemisphere.

Sandra Cisneros

Marie Arana has accomplished the herculean task of defining us as a community, meticulously separating the threads that unite as well as divide us. LatinoLand is a fascinating introduction for those who need to know us. And—surprise—an especially illuminating read for those of us who thought we knew ourselves.

Ms. magazine - Karla J. Strand

"Acclaimed writer Marie Arana provides a comprehensive history of Latino communities in the U.S. that was long overdue. . . . She achieves a feat of exploration, explanation, storytelling and preservation that is thorough, accessible and necessary."

The Washington Post - Geraldo Cadava

"Arana [is] a keen observer of everything that the growth of Latino communities, and the outpouring of works by and about Latinos, has meant for the United States.. . . . [Her] beautifully written narrative, which washes over readers in a series of portraits, rather than as one continuous story, is a perfect representation of Latino diversity."

The New York Times - Miguel Salazar

What brings [LATINOLAND] to life is the richness of voices and perspectives... Arana covers serious ground here in brisk, accessible prose.

Walter Isaacson

Marie Arana does something beautiful in this book: she captures all the strands and weaves that form the fabric of the one-fifth of our nation she calls LatinoLand. This burgeoning population contains many different narratives, as she shows, but there are a number of commonalities. Her book not only helps explain LatinoLand but also America itself.

Booklist (starred review)

The celebrated Arana unpacks one of the most contentious demographic categories in the U.S. . . . . In her sympathetic snapshots and deeply researched reporting, Arana tells a compelling story of Latinos as ‘mutable, uncertain creatures, protean in our very selves—the bewildered offspring of centuries of cross-fertilization and chance.’

MARCH 2024 - AudioFile

Cynthia Farrell brings an excellent ear for language to her narration of this wide-ranging and absorbing audiobook. Her Spanish is flawless, and her sense of story adds impact. Author Marie Arana shows how members of our fastest growing minority have added to our literature, theater, music, politics, and sports. Based on thorough research, including hundreds of interviews, the audiobook explains the changing political alliances and allegiances of Latinos in part by pointing out the extraordinary rise of their membership in evangelical churches. The listener savors her well-wrought profiles of labor icons like Cesar Chavez and Dolores Huerta and lesser-known leaders like pitcher Willie Hernandez. She also gives the right fielder Roberto Clemente his due on and off the field. A fine and fascinating listen. A.D.M. © AudioFile 2024, Portland, Maine

Kirkus Reviews

★ 2023-11-03
An impressively wide-ranging overview of the turbulent history of Latine people in America.

Arana, the inaugural literary director of the Library of Congress, has always been ambitious in her work, from American Chica to Bolivar to Lima Nights. In her latest book, which ably blends historical research with insightful anecdotes, she sets out to tell the story of the people who have come from the Spanish-speaking countries of Central and South America to the U.S., a project that she, as a person of half American, half Peruvian background, is well placed to undertake. The author admits that this vast history is too much for a single book, so she breaks it into a series of illustrative vignettes and interviews. “The U.S. Bureau of the Census predicts that, by 2060, Americans of Hispanic descent will total 111.2 million—almost 30 percent of the people in this country,” writes Arana. “The great majority of us are American born, speak English as well as any native, are employed, obey the law, work hard.” People from Latin America are a melting pot of nationalities, ethnicities, and skin tones, with strains of European, African, and Asian DNA. There is a dark history of racism against the Latinx population, but it seems to be weakening, with many Latine Americans moving up the economic ladder. In fact, Arana wonders whether it’s still possible to speak of Latine culture in the United States at all. She eventually gives a resounding affirmation, concluding that “the business of identity may be complicated, the political affiliation shifty, but, as contradictory as it sounds, Latino unity is surprisingly hale and strong.” Though the author may not answer all the questions she asks, this book is a significant, engaging read.

Arana has a fascinating, complex, and deeply personal story to tell, and she narrates it with abundant verve and intelligence.

Product Details

BN ID:	2940159912848
Publisher:	Simon & Schuster
Publication date:	02/20/2024
Edition description:	Unabridged

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