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About the Book:
The Latina Advantage
By Christina Bejarano
Published by University of Texas Press
ISBN-13: 978-0292745643
During the past decade, racial/ethnic minority women have made significant strides in U.S. politics, comprising large portions of their respective minority delegations both in Congress and in state legislatures. This trend has been particularly evident in the growing political presence of Latinas, yet scholars have offered no clear explanations for this electoral phenomenon—until now.
In The Latina Advantage, Christina E. Bejarano draws on national public opinion datasets and a close examination of state legislative candidates in Texas and California to demonstrate the new power of the political intersection between race and gender. Underscoring the fact that racial/ethnic minority women form a greater share of minority representatives than do white women among white elected officials, Bejarano provides empirical evidence to substantiate previous theoretical predictions of the strategic advantage in the intersectionality of gender and ethnicity in Latinas.
Her evidence indicates that two factors provide the basis for the advantage: increasingly qualified candidates and the softening of perceived racial threat, leading minority female candidates to encounter fewer disadvantages than their male counterparts. Overturning the findings of classic literature that reinforce stereotypes and describe minority female political candidates as being at a compounded electoral disadvantage, Bejarano brings a crucial new perspective to dialogues about the rapidly shifting face of America’s electorate.
About the Author:
Christina Bejarano
Christina Bejarano is Associate Professor of Political Science at the University of Kansas in Lawrence. Her research on Latina/o political candidates and voters has appeared in numerous political science publications.
About the Book:
The Power of Latino Leadership: Culture, Inclusion, and Contribution
By Juana Bordas
Published by Berrett-Koehler Publishers
ISBN-13: 978-1609948870
Embracing diversity, valuing people, taking action.
Over 50 million Latinos live in the United States, and it’s estimated that by 2050 one in three of the US population will be Hispanic. What does it take to lead such a varied and vibrant people who hail from twenty-two different countries and are a blend of different races? And what can leaders of all cultures and ethnicities learn from how Latinos lead?
Juana Bordas takes us on a journey to the very heart and soul of Latino leadership. She offers ten principles that richly illustrate the inclusive, people-oriented, socially responsible, and life-affirming way Latinos have led their communities. Bordas includes the voices and experiences of other distinguished Latino leaders and vivid dichos (traditional sayings) that illustrate positive aspects of the Latino culture. This unprecedented book illustrates powerful and distinctive lessons that will inform leaders of every background.
About the Author:
Juana Bordas
Juana Bordas emigrated to the U.S. from Nicaragua on a banana boat when she was four. The youngest daughter in a family of eight, she was the first to go to college. She learned leadership from her hard-working parents especially her mother, Maria, who cooked food and scrubbed floors in the school lunch room. “Their vision, determination, and sacrifice taught me the very essence of Servant Leadership.” Her early years would instill in her a desire to give back, to make a contribution, and to assist other Latinas find their place in society.
Upon graduating from college, she joined the Peace Corps and worked in the barrios of Santiago, Chile assisting women form work cooperatives so they could feed their children. Juana later received the Franklin Williams Award from the US Peace Corps for her life-long commitment to advancing communities of color.
Juana was a founder and director of Denver’s Mi Casa Women’s Center which is recognized as a national model for women’s empowerment. She was the founding President of the National Hispana Leadership Institute (NHLI), the only program in America that prepares Latinas for national leadership. Recognizing the need to prepare the next generation of Latina leaders, she founded the Circle of Latina Leadership in 2001. For her extensive work with Latinas, she was commended by Latina Style Magazine for creating “a Nation of Latina Leaders.”
Her book Salsa, Soul, and Spirit: Leadership for a Multicultural Age published by Berrett-Koehler received won the International Latino Book Award for best leadership book. Juana served as advisor to Harvard’s Hispanic Journal on Public Policy, the Kellogg National Fellows Program, and as board vice president of the Greenleaf Center for Servant Leadership, and is a trustee of the International Leadership Association.
Juana received the Wise Woman Award from the National Center for Women’s Policy Studies and was inducted into the Colorado Women’s Hall of Fame. In 2009 the Denver Post and the Colorado Women’s Foundation named her the Colorado Unique Woman of the Year. Today, Juana is President of Mestiza Leadership International (MLI) — a company that focuses on leadership and diversity. MLI prepares collaborative and inclusive leaders for our multicultural and global age.
About the Book:
From Coveralls to Zoot Suits: The Lives of Mexican American Women on the World War II Home Front
By Elizabeth Escobedo
Published by The University of North Carolina Press
ISBN-13: 978-1469602059
During World War II, unprecedented employment avenues opened up for women and minorities in U.S. defense industries at the same time that massive population shifts and the war challenged Americans to rethink notions of race. At this extraordinary historical moment, Mexican American women found new means to exercise control over their lives in the home, workplace, and nation.
In From Coveralls to Zoot Suits, Elizabeth R. Escobedo explores how, as war workers and volunteers, dance hostesses and zoot suiters, respectable young ladies and rebellious daughters, these young women used wartime conditions to serve the United States in its time of need and to pursue their own desires. But even after the war, as Escobedo shows, Mexican American women had to continue challenging workplace inequities and confronting family and communal resistance to their broadening public presence.
Highlighting seldom heard voices of the “Greatest Generation,” Escobedo examines these contradictions within Mexican families and their communities, exploring the impact of youth culture, outside employment, and family relations on the lives of women whose home-front experiences and everyday life choices would fundamentally alter the history of a generation.
About the Author:
Elizabeth Escobedo
Elizabeth Escobedo is an associate professor of Latina/o history, with a specialization in 20th century Mexican American history, at the University of Denver. She received her Ph.D. from the University of Washington in 2004 and enjoys teaching a wide-range of topics in U.S. history, including modern America, the Latina/o and Chicana/o experience, women and gender, and the history of race and ethnicity in America.
Her book, From Coveralls to Zoot Suits: The Lives of Mexican American Women on the World War II Home Front, was published in 2013 with the University of North Carolina Press. She has also appeared in two PBS documentaries, “Zoot Suit Riots” and “Latino Americans.” University of Denver.
About the Book:
The ABCs and Ñ of America’s Cultural Evolution
By Jim Estrada
Published by Tate Publishing
ISBN-13: 978-1625104243
“This is the book I would recommend to family, friends and business associates who are interested in learning about the contributions Hispanics have made to the growth and development of our nation. The ABCs and Ñ packages facts, history, and future trends in an informative and entertaining journalistic style.”
— Linda G. Alvarado
Co-owner, Major League Baseball’s Colorado Rockies
President & CEO, Alvarado Construction Company, Inc. Denver, CO
“A ‘must understand’ description of U.S. Latinos. In the near future there will be two kinds of professionals in our country; those who read and understood The ABCs and Ñ and those who will wish they had. It should be a textbook in our schools and a college class for all managers whose companies and organizations interact with Latinos.”
— Jorge Haynes
Senior Director of External Relations, Office of the Chancellor California State University System Long Beach, CA
“A most concise and comprehensive look at the influence and positive impact the Hispanic community has had on our country. Jim provides wonderful details and a positive outlook for the direction our community is going and an invaluable guide for the future.”
— Clara R. Apodaca
Former First Lady, State of New Mexico Executive Director, National Hispanic Cultural Center Foundation Albuquerque, NM
About the Author:
Jim Estrada
Jim Estrada is a nationally renowned practitioner of ethnic marketing, with nearly forty years of advertising, marketing, and public relations experience. In 1992, the Southern California native founded Estrada Communications Group in San Antonio, TX, a family-owned and operated agency specializing in marketing communications and public relations. ECG created a unique niche for itself by providing clients with strategic marketing and culturally relevant insights needed to effectively reach diverse cultural markets.