The Barrio Kings

Download or read book The Barrio Kings written by William Kowalski and published by Orca Book Publishers. This book was released on 2010-04-01 with total page 129 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Rosario Gomez gave up gang life after his brother was killed in a street fight. Now all he wants to do is finish night school, be a good father and work hard enough at his job at the supermarket to get promoted. But when an old friend shows up to ask him why he left the gang, Rosario realizes he was fooling himself if he thought his violent past would just go away. When his pregnant girlfriend is hit in a drive-by shooting, Rosario has to make some hard choices. Revenge means a return to his old ways, something he swore he would never do. But unless he takes action, his enemies will not rest until they've settled the score against him.

Download or read book The Buddha in the Attic written by Julie Otsuka and published by Anchor. This book was released on 2011-08-23 with total page 145 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: NATIONAL BESTSELLER • PEN/FAULKER AWARD WINNER • The acclaimed author of The Swimmers and When the Emperor Was Divine tells the story of a group of young women brought from Japan to San Francisco as “picture brides” a century ago in this "understated masterpiece ... that unfolds with great emotional power" (San Francisco Chronicle). In eight unforgettable sections, The Buddha in the Attic traces the extraordinary lives of these women, from their arduous journeys by boat, to their arrival in San Francisco and their tremulous first nights as new wives; from their experiences raising children who would later reject their culture and language, to the deracinating arrival of war. Julie Otsuka has written a spellbinding novel about identity and loyalty, and what it means to be an American in uncertain times.

Download or read book Boy Kings of Texas written by Domingo Martinez and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2012-07-03 with total page 459 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER AND NATIONAL BOOK AWARD FINALIST A lyrical and authentic book that recounts the story of a border-town family in Brownsville, Texas in the 1980's, as each member of the family desperately tries to assimilate and escape life on the border to become "real" Americans, even at the expense of their shared family history. This is really un-mined territory in the memoir genre that gives in-depth insight into a previously unexplored corner of America.

Download or read book William Kowalksi Ebook Bundle written by William Kowalski and published by Orca Book Publishers. This book was released on 2012-12-07 with total page 192 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This ebook bundle offers three gritty urban tales by William Kowalski. In The Barrio Kings, Rosario Gomez struggles to stay out of the gang life that killed his brother while finishing his high school diploma and preparing for the birth of his first son. But when his old friend Juan gets out of jail, his past returns to haunt him. In The Way It Works, A young bi-racial man who suddenly finds himself homeless, struggles to maintain his dignity and to make his own place in the world. In Something Noble, a single mom must try to convince a selfish drug dealer to donate one of his kidneys to his half-brother.

Download or read book Wounded City written by Robert Vargas and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2016 with total page 279 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Through an ethnographic case study of Chicago's Little Village, Wounded City demonstrates how competition for political power and state resources undermined efforts to reduce gang violence. Robert Vargas argues that the state, through different patterns of governance, can contribute to distrust and division among community members.

Download or read book The Almighty Latin King and Queen Nation written by David Brotherton and published by Columbia University Press. This book was released on 2004 with total page 568 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: How a notorious street gang became a social organization providing leadership to New York City's Latino/a youths.

Download or read book When the Spirits Dance Mambo written by Marta Morena Vega and published by . This book was released on 2018-04-15 with total page 273 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: When rock and roll was transforming American culture in the 1950s and '60s, East Harlem pulsed with the sounds of mambo and merengue. Instead of Elvis and the Beatles, Marta Moreno Vega grew up worshiping Celia Cruz, Mario Bauza, and Arsenio Rodriguez. Their music could be heard on every radio in El Barrio and from the main stage at the legendary Palladium, where every weekend working-class kids dressed in their sharpest suits and highest heels and became mambo kings and queens. Spanish Harlem was a vibrant and dynamic world, but it was also a place of constant change, where the traditions of Puerto Rican parents clashed with their children's American ideals. A precocious little girl with wildly curly hair, Marta was the baby of the family and the favorite of her elderly abuela, who lived in the apartment down the hall. Abuela Luisa was the spiritual center of the family, an espiritista who smoked cigars and honored the Afro-Caribbean deities who had always protected their family. But it was Marta's brother, Chachito, who taught her the latest dance steps and called her from the pay phone at the Palladium at night so she could listen, huddled beneath the bedcovers, to the seductive rhythms of Tito Puente and his orchestra. In this luminous and lively memoir, Marta Moreno Vega calls forth the spirit of Puerto Rican New York and the music, mysticism, and traditions of a remarkable and quintessentially American childhood.