Hispanic Heritage Month: Must-Read Hispanic & Latine Authors

The novel starts in 1985 when artist Anita de Monte falls out of the window of her apartment. By 1998, few remember the painter who died too young. Racquel, a third-year art history student trying to prepare her final thesis, discovers Anita’s story as she’s stumbling up the social ladder on the arm of an older, well-connected student. She becomes obsessed with Anita’s story, whose past mimics Racquel’s present.

Anita de Monte Laughs Last is an examination of power and art, questioning who gets to be remembered and who’s left behind not just in art, but in the world of the ultra-rich.

Inspired in part by the Mexican board game, Lotería is an exploration of Latin American fairy tales with a slant toward the paranormal and horrifying. These stories aren’t meant to teach children a lesson in morality, but rather they’re meant to scare you senseless.

If you love monsters, zombies, and vampires, oh my, is this the short story collection for you.

Asiri and the Amaru is a cozy adult standalone fantasy romance rooted in Peruvian folklore. It follows Asiri as she leaves home to prevent her gift of speaking with animals from being abused any further. But in the seafront village she’s moved to is Dario, a charming animal healer, who makes Asiri nervous for more than one reason. Not only is he the one most likely to sniff out her secret, he’s also definitely too handsome for her own good.

When the two of them stumble upon an injured Amaru, a creature that was only supposed to exist in the stories, they have to work together to protect it from the superstitious town while also nursing it back to health.

Carolina Santos knows it’s kind of bad mojo to be a wedding planner who was left at the altar by her ex three years prior. She’s on her way to forgetting she’d ever been scorned when she’s approached to apply for a gig being the resident wedding planner at a local series of boutique hotels. This job would certainly solve her imminent lack of office space and make paying rent a given instead of a question. Except getting this job also means working with her ex’s brother... AKA the man who convinced said ex to leave her at the altar.

They both need this job for different reasons, but their animosity is regrettably magnetic. Carolina may not be interested in falling in love again, except it’s hard not to want things that are off-limits...

Brown’s poetry collection We Are Owed is an exploration of her Black identity and how it relates to her Mexican identity, and how she exists in Mexican American spaces. She uses her Black family and friends in the novel as a protective force as she relates the history of enslaved Africans in Texas and Mexico and rejects US, Chicano, and Mexican nationalism for the Anti-Blackness built into its social structures.

Her poetry is beautiful and precise, perfect for any reader interested in intersectionality and the pervasiveness of Anti-Blackness.

D kept a journal to document his time spent in detention. That journal has now been worked into the memoir Detained: A Boy’s Journal of Survival and Resilience, the first memoir to document a child’s experience at the US-Mexico border. Esperanza details indifferent cruelty from border patrol agents, camaraderie and friendship between detainees, and crammed sleeping situations as he was moved from ‘la perrerea’ (translation: the dog kennel) to a tent city where D would meet Gerardo Iván Morales.

Morales later emboldened D to share his story, assisting with the translation for an English-speaking audience. With renewed anti-immigration politics woven into Trump’s second presidency, Detained is an important story to read to understand the bipartisan failure that has led to the use of detention camps at the border.

Yemilet Flores had wanted to keep the fact that she’s gay under wraps after her ex-best friend (and now ex-crush) outed her to the whole school. After transferring to a Catholic school for a clean slate, Yami knows that it’s more important than ever to play the straight girl her mom expects her to be. It’s hard, though, when the only openly gay girl at her new school is perfect. Smart, talented, and tragically cute. Forget Jesus! WWSGD (what would a straight girl do)?

Tirado’s sophomore novel, We Don’t Swim Here, gives the desegregation of swimming pools a Candyman twist. Bronwyn is new to Hillwoods, and she’s only supposed to be there for a year while her grandmother is in hospice. Maybe it wouldn’t be too bad if she could actually manage to find a place to swim... or talk to someone that isn’t her cousin Anais.

Anais has nearly perfected the art of existing in Hillwoods, but Bronwyn’s visit is making her mess up the rituals she’s kept for years. If you ignore the town, the town will ignore you back. Except Bronywn has always been stubborn and doesn’t like not having the answers. So, when she goes digging, she drags Anais into danger that neither of them could have expected.

When Rafie Alvarez transfers to a new school for his senior year after his abuelo dies, he knows that he’ll snag the lead vocalist spot of the local mariachi group. He was the fan favorite in his hometown, after all.

His hopes are shattered when he finds out that his new school’s mariachi group already has a lead vocalist, and it’s the boy Rafie made out with at last year’s Mariachi Extravaganza de Nacional. Now what’s standing between living up to Rafie’s abuelo’s mariachi dreams is the infuriatingly attractive (and talented! The nerve!) Rey Chavez. 

Salvaciónis a YA fantasy inspired by El Zorro, perfect for fans of Yamile Saied Méndez and Aiden Thomas. By day, Lola de La Peña pretends to be the proper young Mexican lady watching her mother cure ailments with sal negra. When night falls, Lola takes up the role of the vigilante Salvación, protecting Coloma from threats that follow the signing of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo.

But when a neighboring town is destroyed using the power of sal roja, Lola’s role of Salvación is no longer an act to protect her town; it’s a necessity to protect the entirety of Alta California from the ambitious and power-hungry Damien Hernández.

Saints of the Household is Tison’s Pura Belpé Award-winning debut about brotherhood, abuse, and recovery, told in alternating POVs in vignettes and verse. Max and Jay are two BriBri American brothers with an abusive father who have always relied on each other for survival and staying out of trouble. But when they hear a classmate struggling with the words, they intervene and end up beating their school’s star soccer player to a pulp.

Max and Jay are forced to grapple with the aftermath of their violence as they realize that they might be more like their father than they’d believed. If they want to move on from this, they’ll have to reach back into their BriBri roots to understand who they are and who they want as they continue the tumultuous road to adulthood.

In her YA memoir Islands Apart: Becoming Dominican American, Mendez reflects on her experience growing up Afro Latina in the Deep South through ten personal essays. Jasminne grew up jumping between Army bases from Germany to Tennessee. She experienced everyday girl problems from first crushes and puberty, while also having to juggle racism from all angles. It’s one thing to have to grow up Black in a racist world, but another entirely to face anti-Blackness from her Latine family.

This memoir is perfect for teens and adults wanting to know more about what it’s like growing up Afro-Latina in the US.