Críticas Magazine

Isn’t it great to be in the library? (wherever that is) was a program presented by the Library & Information Technology Association at the American Library Association Annual Conference in Anaheim, CA.

 

Joseph Janes, professor at the University of Washington shared his views on how the idea of the library has expanded and moved beyond traditional concepts such as physical spaces. How customers are in the library when they cross the digital threshold to access the online catalogs, library web pages, reference via IM sessions, and renew items online. 

Customers can be in the library anywhere and in anyway in which they interact with information organized, provided, and suppo...Read More

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There might be only 33 million Canadians, but there are a lot of different flavors of Canadians.

One reason I know this is because I grew up not far from Vancouver.  I heard British accents there, saw bilingual food labels in the grocery stores, watched East Indians playing cricket amidst the Northwest Coast Indian totem poles of Stanley Park, in a city where nearly a fifth of the population is ethnic Chinese.

But there's better-maintained evidence than that of Canada's rich diversity.  The Multicultural Canada website...Read More

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Earlier this week, Críticas somehow found itself in the crosshairs of a notable scholar.  Dr. Felipe de Ortego y Gasca, who 40 years ago founded the first Chicano Studies program in this large state—at the University of Texas-El Paso—and who has over the years distinguished himself as a wide-ranging literary critic and educator, published a long piece on Sunday that takes this magazine to task for its very focus. 

An English speaker's guide to Spanish-language titles is what Críticas has always worked to be. Who was doing that in 2001, when the magazine began? What rev...Read More

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I was watching the news on the plane back to New York, after attending the ALA annual conference, when I learned that Ingrid Betancourt was free.

 

In 2002 Ingrid Betancourt was visiting a little town campaigning to become Colombia's President when she was kidnapped. That was the last thing the world knew about her. For many years people speculated about what had happened to Ingrid. She became a legend- a woman who gave her life for her country. Some people thought that she was alive, others that she no longer existed. Last year a video footage of Ingrid seating in the middle of the jungle and looking gaunt surfaced, and the world dared to be hopeful and wish for her to be free. Around the gl...Read More

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Cheech and Chong! There was a time—and I swear to you it wasn't so long ago, barely, like, the day before yesterday—when kids would listen to their big brothers' and sisters' Cheech and Chong records and laugh our goofy heads off.  At the nasty jokes, the drug references, the glorious sound of America's Youth talking back to its stoopid parents: it was liberatory education that cracked you up. Raunchy humor didn't get much better nor more subversive than that. 

So what was I supposed to do the other day when my pint-sized roommate whose occupation as far as I can tell is to fool around merrily resisting my parental authority brought home from the library a book called Cheech and sat on the floor paging through it, laughing his goofy head off? 

I had to ...Read More

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REFORMA and the Association for Library Service to Children (ALSC), hosted a beautiful celebration of life and Latino children's literature at the ALA conference in Anaheim. Writers and Illustrators of books in Spanish or of Latino interest were honored.

-from ALSC website:

The Pura Belpré Awa...Read More

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In case our story a few weeks ago wasn't enough to get all you Anaheim visitors over to Santa Ana to visit the nation's most important independent bookstore specializing in Spanish-language titles for kids and adults, where you can also get a haircut, Katie Couric issued a reminder on Wednesday's CBS News. Ruében Martínez's passionate work to promote reading was featured there once again, with the added attraction of a cameo appearance by another amazing OC denizen and old friend o' th' family, Gustavo "Ask a Mexican&qu...Read More

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I've got hold of a master resource to identify books about Latinos and also books for Spanish speakers. The Latino Voices Brochure is published by the Association of American Publishers. The brochure includes a list of small and large publishers and titles for all ages. Here I've included  a selected list of publishers included on the brochure. Take a look at the brochure today!

American Academy of Pediatrics
Business Plus
Celebra
Dial Books for Young Readers
DK Publishing
Grand Central Publishing
Henry Holt Books for Young Readers
Hyperion Books
Larousse
Little Brown & Company
Modern Language Association
New American Library
Random House Children's
Rayo
Rayo Children's
Rodale
St Martin's Press...Read More

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Brooklyn must be bursting with pride to see one of its favorite librarians, Roxana Benavides, featured in yesterday's New York Daily News.  It's merely one of the top six newspapers in the United States, with a daily circulation of three-quarters of a million.

Her profile, "The library is no longer constrained to the library walls," includes a magnificent photo of the welcoming guanaca and emphasizes her service to immigrant communities.  It makes a nice companion piece to Loida's ...Read More

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This week, three of my friends told me that they were receiving treatment for their diabetes. I did not know my beloved friends had diabetes! This morning a colleague sent a link about a Spanish-language Consumer Guide for Oral Diabetes Medications. 

I decided to do a quick search about the subject and found out that the National Council of La Raza has a website about Diabetes Facts and Figures which includes a general analysis of the national situation:

-- Two million Latinos age 20 and older have type 1 or type 2 diabetes.
-- Latinos are 1.5 times more likely than non-Hispanic Whites to have Type 2 diabetes.
-- However, Mexican Americans

...Read More

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A few minutes south of here on the other bank the Rio Grande is Reynosa,  Tamaulipas, with a half-million people and growing fast.  Its population has doubled in the past couple decades.

Last fall two U.S. artists launched a project to gather portraits of Reynosa.  Both are photographers, but they didn't take a single picture.  Instead David Freeman and Jonathan Searfoss found a way to put cameras in the hands of some real insiders: the city's kids.

Yesterday the local paper told the story in "...Read More

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REFORMA will host its 3^rd National Conference on September 18-21, 2008 in El Paso, Texas. Bridging the Gaps: Juntos @ the Border promises to be an exciting conference!

 

The Conference starts with various Pre-conferences including Combating health disparities: the role of the librarian, Research into Practice: Latino perception of public libraries and their public-library use, Adelante! Library services for your Latino communities and an Advocacy Institute.

 

Dana Gioia, Chairman of the National Endowment of the Arts is the Keynote s...Read More

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