Observances - 2019
The month of October features two observances: Hispanic Heritage Month, which runs from September 15 - October 15, and National Disability Employment Awareness Month.
HISPANIC HERITAGE MONTH 2019 FEATURE: The Work of Julia Alvarez
Julia Alvarez
"
In her poetry and prose, Julia Alvarez (born 1950) has expressed her feelings about her immigration to the United States. She was born in New York City of Dominican parents, who returned to their native land with their newborn daughter. After her family's reimmigration to the United States when Alvarez was ten, she and her sisters struggled to find a place for themselves in their new world. Alvarez has used her dual experience as a starting point for the exploration of culture through writing.
Alvarez's most notable work, How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents, fictionally discusses her life in the Dominican Republic and the United States and the hardships her family faced as immigrants. Apparently the culmination of many years of effort, the 15 stories which make up the novel offer entertaining insights for a wide variety of potential readers that includes both Hispanics and non-Hispanics." - from "Julia Alvarez." Encyclopedia of World Biography Online, Gale, 1998. Biography In Context
Online Resources
About Me The author's autobiography as provided on her web site
Julia Alvarez interview: In the time of discovery "Julia Alvarez shares the key elements of her life and work as a novelist, poet and researcher"
By the Book: Julia Alvarez New York Times interview from April 11, 2019 (Current SJR State students, faculty & staff can get free, unlimited access to the New York Times - here's how to register.)
Q&A With Julia Alvarez from 2014
THE ENTHUSIAST: In Praise of Julia Alvarez New York Times piece from June 20, 2018 (Current SJR State students, faculty & staff can get free, unlimited access to the New York Times - here's how to register.)
Julia Alvarez Talks About Her Experience as a Dual Citizen
Julia Alvarez To Receive 2013 National Medal Of The Arts The National Medal of Arts is the highest award given to artists and arts patrons by the United States government
Books at the SJR State Library by Julia Alvarez
Books may be checked out by community patrons as well as SJR State students faculty and staff. If a title is located at another campus, the book may be sent to another campus upon request.
Locations follow the call number. PAC = Palatka Campus Library OPC = Orange Park Campus Library SAC = St. Augustine Campus Library
Before We Were Free by Call Number: PZ7.A48 Be 2002 -- PACISBN: 9780375815447Publication Date: 2002-08-13In the early 1960s in the Dominican Republic, twelve-year-old Anita learns that her family is involved in the underground movement to end the bloody rule of the dictator, General Trujillo. - publisher
A Cafecito Story by Call Number: PS3551.L845 C3 2001 -- PACISBN: 9781931498548Publication Date: 2004-03-01"Throughout the Dominican Republic and Central America it is a household ritual to offer a "cafecito" (a small cup of dark, rich, potent coffee) to any visitor, especially a stranger. Now, in a story spanning Latin America and Nebraska, Julia Alvarez offers us A Cafecito Story." "In North America, coffee is the morning lifeline between waking and working. In Central and South America, coffee is an economic lifeline, after oil the most important export commodity. Especially when coffee is grown sustainably, it links the First and Third Worlds in ways that are surprising and often delightful. For instance, North American songbirds winter in southern habitats where their survival is directly dependent on coffee farming practices. With lyric simplicity, A Cafecito Story tells the complex tale of a social beverage that bridges nations and unites people in trade, in words, in birds, and in love." "The story unfolds through the eyes of Joe, a man with farming in his blood but an increasing sense of displacement from the natural world. While on holiday in the Dominican Republic, Joe learns about how coffee is grown and traded from Miguel, a Dominican coffee farmer. It is from Miguel and the other campesinos that Joe comes to understand the role of coffee in global trade, environmental degradation, and endangered songbird habitat."--BOOK JACKET.
Finding Miracles by Call Number: Palatka Circulation -- PZ7.A48 Fi 2018ISBN: 9780399555480Publication Date: 2018-03-27"Fifteen-year-old Milly Kaufman is an average American teenager until Pablo, a new student at her school, inspires her to search for her birth family in his native country." - publisher
Homecoming: new and collected poems by Call Number: Palatka Circulation -- PS3551.L845 H6 1996ISBN: 9780452275676Publication Date: 1996-04-01" Long before her award-winning novel, How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents, and In the Time of the Butterflies, Julia Alvarez was writing poetry that gave a distinctive voice to the Latina woman - and helped give to American letters a vibrant new literary form. Homecoming was Alvarez's first published collection of poetry, a work of great subtlety and power in which the young poet returned to her old-world childhood in the Dominican Republic. Now this revised and expanded edition adds thirteen new poems. These more recent writings are still deeply autobiographical in nature, but written with the edgier, more knowing tone of a woman who has seen, and survived, more of life. Wonderfully lucid and engaging, toned with deep emotionality and a wry observation of life, the poems of Julia Alvarez stand next to her fiction to both delight us and give us lessons in living and loving." - publisher
How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents by Call Number: PS3551.L845 H66 2010 -- PACISBN: 9780606234702Publication Date: 2010-01-12In the 1960s, political tension forces the Garcia family away from Santo Domingo and towards the Bronx. The sisters all hit their strides in America, adapting and thriving despite cultural differences, language barriers, and prejudice. But Mami and Papi are more traditional, and they have far more difficulty adjusting to their new country. Making matters worse, the girls--frequently embarrassed by their parents--find ways to rebel against them.
In the 1960s, political tension forces the García family away from Santo Domingo and towards the Bronx. The sisters all hit their strides in America, adapting and thriving despite cultural differences, language barriers, and prejudice. But Mami and Papi are more traditional, and they have far more difficulty adjusting to their new country. Making matters worse, the girls--frequently embarrassed by their parents--find ways to rebel against them. - publisher
How Tía Lola Came to Visit Stay by Call Number: ML3930.O34 A43 2002 PAC Children's BooksISBN: 9780440418702Publication Date: 2002-08-13Although ten-year-old Miguel is at first embarrassed by his colorful aunt, Tia Lola, when she comes to Vermont from the Dominican Republic to stay with his mother, his sister, and him after his parents' divorce, he learns to love her. Moving to Vermont after his parents split, Miguel has plenty to worry about. Tia Lola, his quirky, "carismatica, " and maybe magical aunt makes his life even more unpredictable when she arrives from the Dominican Republic to help out his Mami. - PUBLISHER
In the Time of the Butterflies by Call Number: PS3551.L845 I5 2010 -- PACISBN: 9781565129764Publication Date: 2010-01-12The life and death of three revolutionary sisters in the Dominican Republic, told by a surviving fourth. One by one the Mirabal Sisters, as they were known, join the opposition to the Trujillo dictatorship in the 1950s, suffering imprisonment and torture while their men watch powerless. They are released, then one night their jeep is ambushed. A story based on real events by the author of How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents. - publisher
Once upon a Quinceanera: coming of age in the USA by Call Number: Palatka Circulation -- GT2490 .A45 2008ISBN: 9780452288300Publication Date: 2008-07-29"A cultural exploration of the Latina fifteenth birthday celebration traces the experiences of a Queens teen preparing for her quinceañera, in an account that documents the history of the celebration's traditions as well as its growing popularity." - publisher
The Other Side by Call Number: Palatka Circulation -- PS3551.L845 O84 1995ISBN: 9780452273412Publication Date: 1996-12-01
Return to Sender by Call Number: PZ7 .A48 Re 2009 -- SACISBN: 9780375851230Publication Date: 2010-09-14After his family hires migrant Mexican workers to help save their Vermont farm from foreclosure, eleven-year-old Tyler befriends the oldest daughter, but when he discovers they may not be in the country legally, he realizes that real friendship knows no borders. - PUBLISHER
Saving the World: A Novel by Call Number: Palatka Circulation -- PS3551.L845 S28 2007ISBN: 9781565125582Publication Date: 2007-04-27From the Publisher: While Alma Huebert is researching a new novel, she finds her real story-and her salvation-in a little-known but staggering historical footnote: the Royal Expedition of the Vaccine. In 1803, Don Francisco Balmis embarked on a two-year sea voyage to rescue the New World from smallpox. Accompanying him were twenty-two orphan boys, acting as live carriers, and their guardian, Isabel Sendales y Gomez. As Alma digs deeper into Isabel's life, she finds her own power to commit an act as life-changing as Isabel's. In Saving the World, Julia Alvarez, author of perennial bestsellers, including How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents and In the Time of the Butterflies, takes us into the worlds of "two women living two centuries apart [who] each face 'a crisis of the soul' when their fates are tied to idealistic men"-(Publishers Weekly).
The Secret Footprints by Call Number: Palatka Children's Books -- F1909 .A47 2002ISBN: 9780440417477Publication Date: 2002-09-10"A story based on Dominican folklore, about the ciguapas, a tribe of beautiful underwater people whose feet are attached backwards, with their toes pointing in the direction from which they have come." - publisher
Something to Declare: Essays by Call Number: Palatka Circulation -- PS3551.L845 Z47 2014ISBN: 9781616205584Publication Date: 2014-10-28
A Wedding in Haiti: the story of a friendship by Call Number: PS3551.L845 A3 2012 -- OPCISBN: 9781616201302Publication Date: 2012-04-24In this book the author talks about three of her most personal relationships, with her parents, with her husband, and with a young Haitian boy known as Piti. A teenager when she and her husband, Bill, first met him in 2001, Piti crossed the border into the Dominican Republic to find work. Impressed by his courage, charmed by his smile, the author has over the years come to think of him as a son, even promising to be at his wedding someday. When Piti calls in 2009, her promise is tested. To the author, much admired for her ability to lead readers deep inside her native Dominican culture, "Haiti is like a sister I've never gotten to know." Here she takes us on a journey into experiences that challenge our way of thinking about history and how it can be reimagined when people from two countries, traditional enemies and strangers, become friends. We follow her across the border into Haiti, once the richest of all the French colonies and now teeters on the edge of the abyss, first for the celebration of a wedding and a year later to find Piti's loved ones in the devastation of the earthquake. A strong message is packed inside this story, this time about the nature of poverty and of wealth, of human love and of human frailty, of history and of the way we live now. - publisher
Where Do They Go? by Call Number: PZ8.3.A468 Wh 2016 -- PAC Children's BooksISBN: 9781609806705Publication Date: 2016-11-02Children wonder what happens to their loved ones after death. - PUBLISHER
The Woman I Kept to Myself by Call Number: PS3551.L845 W66 2011 -- OPCISBN: 9781616200725Publication Date: 2011-04-05Seventy-five autobiographical poems by Dominican American author Julia Alvarez. - publisher
Yo! by Call Number: Palatka Circulation -- PS3551.L845 Y6 2019ISBN: 9781616209490Publication Date: 2019-04-09
Books and eBooks at the SJR State Library About Julia Alvarez and Her Work
Books may be checked out by community patrons as well as SJR State students faculty and staff. If a title is located at another campus, the book may be sent to another campus upon request.
Locations follow the call number. PAC = Palatka Campus Library OPC = Orange Park Campus Library SAC = St. Augustine Campus Library
Please note: eBooks are only accessible to currently registered SJR State students, faculty, and staff via MySJRstate due to licensing restrictions.
Julia Alvarez: writing a new place on the map by Call Number: PS3551.L845 Z74 2005 -- OPCISBN: 0826336515Publication Date: 2005-11-15
Julia Alvarez: a critical companion by Call Number: PS3551.L845 Z87 2001 -- OPCISBN: 9780313309939Publication Date: 2001-08-30
Inhabiting la Patria: identity, agency, and antojo in the work of Julia Alvarez by Call Number: eBookISBN: 1438449054Publication Date: 2013-12-01"Provides insightful criticism from many perspectives and grants in-depth analyses of both well-known and lesser studied texts"--Provided by publisher.
Explaining the Bilingual and Bicultural Poetry and Narratives of Julia Alvarez by Call Number: eBookISBN: 9780773425521Publication Date: 2011-11-30
LIBRARY EVENTS FOR HISPANIC HERITAGE MONTH, 2019
#trendingtopics Film Series - Life on the Line: Coming of Age Between Nations (2014)
"Life on the Line tells the story of millions of children whose lived realities epitomize what mestiza-feminist theorist Gloria Anzaldua called "a struggle of borders" through a close-up look at one young girl who bravely tries to hold her family together in the face of great economic, social, emotional and political assault. As an antidote to the commonly xenophobic and dehumanizing public attitudes and policies surrounding illegal immigration, this film offers a heartfelt and humanizing portrait of a one of the most pressing issues of our time. This short film provides rich analytical fodder for teachers of Anthropology, Sociology, and Women's Studies classes to explore transnational families, hybrid consciousness, the quest for belonging, and the frequent dramaturgies of citizenship marked by rupture, liminality, heartbreak and hope."- Kanopy
Running time: 27 minutes
This documentary is not rated.
Screening Dates and Locations
September 17, 2019 at 2:00 p.m. Palatka Campus Library, L219C
September 25, 2019 at 2:00 Orange Park Campus Library, L-111
#trendingtopics Film Series - Who is Dayani Cristal?: Stories of Crossing the Border (2013)
"The body of an unidentified immigrant is found in the Arizona Desert. In an attempt to retrace his path and discover his story, director Marc Silver and actor Gael Garcia Bernal embed themselves among migrant travelers on their own mission to cross the border, providing rare insight into the human stories which are so often ignored in the immigration debate.
Winner of a World Cinema - Documentary Cinematography Prize at the Sundance Film Festival.
"With its compellingly multifaceted approach, its earnest compassion and a celebrity presence in the form of the actor Gael Garcia Bernal, the documentary could be enlisted in the perennial battle over immigration law." - Nicolas Rapold, The New York Times" - Kanopy
Running Time: 90 minutes
This documentary is not rated.
Screening Date and Location
September 25, 2019 at 2:00 p.m. St. Augustine Campus Library, L-112
Disability Employment Awareness Month 2019
The U.S. Department of Labor has announced "The Right Talent, Right Now" as the theme for the 2019 National Disability Employment Awareness Month (NDEAM).
The 2019 theme emphasizes the essential role that people with disabilities play in America's economic success, especially in an era when historically low unemployment and global competition are creating a high demand for skilled talent. The Department's Office of Disability Employment Policy (ODEP) administers NDEAM.
"Every day, individuals with disabilities add significant value and talent to our workforce and economy," said U.S. Secretary of Labor Alexander Acosta. "Individuals with disabilities offer employers diverse perspectives on how to tackle challenges and achieve success. Individuals with disabilities have the right talent, right now."
Observed annually in October, NDEAM celebrates America's workers with disabilities both past and present, and emphasizes the importance of inclusive policies and practices to ensure that all Americans who want to work can work, and have access to services and supports to enable them to do so. With continued advances in such supports, including accessible technology, it is easier than ever before for America's employers to hire people with disabilities in high-demand jobs.
NDEAM traces its beginnings to 1945, when Congress declared the first week in October "National Employ the Physically Handicapped Week." In 1962, the use of the word "physically" ceased in order to include individuals with all types of disabilities. In 1988, Congress expanded the week to a month and changed the name to NDEAM. In 2001, the Department established ODEP and it assumed responsibility for NDEAM, which includes annual theme selection to facilitate advanced event planning by businesses and community organizations that support the employment of people with disabilities. - source
Library Events for Disability Employment Awareness Month 2019
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Autism in America Running Time: 103 minutes. This documentary is not rated. JOIN US! October 23, 2019 |
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The Key of G "An award-winning documentary about disability, caregiving and interdependence. THE KEY OF G tells the story of Gannet, a 22-year-old man with severe disabilities, as he prepares to move out of his mother's home and into a San Francisco apartment with three musicians and artists as primary caregivers. Winner of the 2007 Golden Gate Award for Best Bay Area Documentary at the 50th San Francisco International Film Festival, THE KEY OF G provides a model of how someone with serious disabilities can be integrated into the community and live a truly full life. Along the way, it challenges conventional notions about independence, empathy, and disability, and provides a glimpse into a kind of life seldom seen on television."-Kanopy Running time: 60 minutes. This documentary is not rated. JOIN US! October 23, 2019 |
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Best and Most Beautiful Things "In 2009, director Garrett Zevgetis googled the word "Beauty." He had been working on a number of darker-themed documentaries and was determined to find an uplifting story for a future project. The search returned a poignant Helen Keller quote that led Garrett to Perkins School for the Blind outside Boston, a renowned institution where a feature documentary had never before been made. He began volunteering at Perkins. On the last day of his scheduled term, a bubbly student introduced herself - Michelle had found him.." - Kanopy JOIN US! October 30, 2019 |
