In celebration of Mexican and Latin American history on May 5th, check out one of these resources on display on the First Floor.
Frida Kahlo is a self-titled Mexican “folk artist.” She is a voice for traditional and indigenous cultures in Mexico as well as feminists in the early Twentieth Century. During her volatile marriage to fellow artist Diego Rivera, Kahlo became involved politically in the Communist movement. Although she is famous for her self-portraits, which portray her striking features and include symbols of magical realism, Kahlo was also an artist of the people. She was known locally during her lifetime, but received international acclaim following her death in 1954.
Colombian author Gabriel Garcia Marquez is best known for his novels One Hundred Years of Solitude and Love in the Time of Cholera. He won the Nobel Peace Prize for Literature in 1982 for his works across several genres of writing. His works often depict the fictional town of Macondo that is modeled after his childhood home. He passed away in April 2014 in Mexico City.
Julia Alvarez, a Dominican-American author, penned How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents, the story of a generation born to immigrants in New York City. The dictatorship of Rafael Trujillo plays a large part in the novel, as well as in Alvarez’s own life. In the Time of the Butterflies is a nonfiction account of how four sisters worked with the Dominican resistance to overthrow Trujillo in the 1950s. Alvarez focuses on the voice of the Dominican Republic as well as the difficulty of immigrants to assimilate to American culture.