Bookie's Bodega

2022  My reading list this year has been relatively short, hopefully I'll be able to read more over summer! My Reading List: Pump Room,1804 by John Nattes. Stapleton Collection.  Austen, Jane. Northanger Abbey . Harrap's, 2022.  - Northanger Abbey  is a commentary on friendship, love, and imagination. And no, it is not "My Little Pony." The main character, Catherine Morland, goes to Bath with her family friend and meets Henry Tilney. Catherine becomes close friends with Eleanor, Henry's sister, and becomes closer to the Tilney family. However, Isabella Thorpe- Catherine's closest friend in Bath- attempts to set Catherine up with her brother John. John is rude and unintelligent, while Henry is smart, kind, and has a lot in common with Catherine. Catherine has to learn who her real friends are throughout the novel.  Christenson, Allen J. Popol Vuh: Sacred Book of the Quiche Maya People . University of Oklahoma Press, 2003.  - The Popol Vuh  is the sacred...

 Chicana Feminism and Laura Aguilar Laura Aguilar was a Mexican-Irish woman born in San Gabriel, California in 1959. She was a member of the LGBT community, resulting in her photographing other LGBT WOC for some of her collections. Many of her most famous works explore notions of femininity and self-image. She recently passed in 2018. Aguilar’s works uniquely look at her experience as a plus-size, LGBT, woman of color. Many of her photographs depict her naked body, likely to normalize seeing women’s bodies, which tend to be criticized for their size, shape, or amount of coverage. Her art seems to be a form of self-expression, a search for a safe space as a plus-size, LGBT Chicana woman. According to ARTNews , “the photography of the late Chicana artist Laura Aguilar has caused many to see the world differently,” due to her openness with mental health and equity as well as “her identities as a large-bodied, working-class queer Chicana woman” (Duron 2020, 1).  Center 99  by...

Chile's New Liberal Government       “The Rise of Chile’s Center-Left” is a podcast episode from Latino USA that aired on February 1, 2022. In this episode, host Julio Ricardo Varela and journalist Camila Vergara discuss recent Chile’s political changes. Chile’s 36 year old President Gabriel Boric was elected December 19, 2021. Boric was a leader in the 2011 Chilean student movements, in which they protested the privatization of higher education. I learned that Chile’s president is center-left and they will soon redraft their constitution, one that was made during the rule of dictator Augusto Pinochet. The 155 redrafters of this constitution are “equal number of men and women, as well as 17 representatives of indigenous nations” ( Latino 1:36-1:49). Student leader Gabriel Boric delivers a speech during a protest on August 28, 2012. Photo by  Claudio Santana.      I really enjoyed learning about Chilean politics. I feel as if this news isn’t as pub...

Violence in Our Foods Fresh Fruit, Broken Bodies: Migrant Farmworkers in the United States by Seth M. Holmes is about migrant farmworkers in the United States, particularly those from Latin America on the west coast. Holmes crossed the border with indigenous farmworkers, worked alongside them in the fields, and interviewed farmworkers of every level (admin, crew bosses, pickers, etc). Holmes realizes "that an ethnography of suffering and migration would be incomplete without witnessing firsthand" how these migrants work (Holmes 40). This immersive study is intended to inform American consumers of where their food comes from and the people that provide them with their produce. Holmes does a wonderful job of integrating his findings with studies and a broader perspective, helping us understand how these migrants have come to be in the position they are. Seth Holmes and his Triqui companions in the border desert. Photo courtesy of Seth M. Holmes. In this book, Holmes immerses hi...

Trujillato  "A Border Drawn in Blood" is an episode of Latino USA that first aired on October 6, 2017, then was re-aired on February 17th, 2022. This episode discusses the complicated relationship between Haiti and the Dominican Republic, especially under the rule of Rafael Trujillo. Trujillo was a dictator of Dominican Republic and ordered the Perejil Massacre of 1937, a massacre that the government tried to cover up. I had never heard of this massacre, and I learned a lot about the conflict between these countries, and their version of a border wall. The Dominican Republic wanted to build a wall to keep the Haitians out- for the same reasons that Trump wanted to build a wall on our Mexican border. At this massacre, "Haitian seasonal farm workers and their families... were massacred because they could not pronounce the consonant 'r' in 'perejil'" (Ayuso 1).  Haiti and the Dominican Republic Border From a report from the UN Environmental Program in 2...

Tragedy at Ayotzinapa and Tlatelolco On September 26, 2014, the world lost 46 young men. 3 of these boys were shot dead by police, and 43 went missing, never to be seen again.  The story of these young men is also the story of the Mexican government failing its people. These young men were students of Ayotzinapa Rural Teacher's College and future educators. The podcast Latino USA discusses this case in its January 28, 2022 episode entitled "After Ayotzinapa: The Missing 43." The 43 Missing Students Ayotzinapa Rural Teacher's College is located in Guerrero, Mexico, a farming town. This school is heavily involved in activism, and its students were planning to travel to Mexico City to participate in a protest for the Tlatelolco Massacre of 1968. However, before they had even begun their protests, they were wounded at the source. As they were commandeering buses to travel to Mexico City (a common practice), local police arrived on the scene and opened fire on the unarmed...

2021  This year was my first year of college. I had a lot of learning experiences- and a lot of homework. Throughout the semester, I read a lot of books for my classes. Throughout the year... not so many.  Bookie's Reading List! : Caligula, marble bust. Artist Unknown. A.D. 37-41 The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York Barrett, Anthony. Caligula: The Abuse of Power . Routledge, 2019. - In my 8th grade humanities class, we were told never to look up Caligula because of his horrific reign. So, naturally, whenever I see the name Caligula I get interested. I read a couple chapters of this biography before I got busy, and I'd suggest it to anyone looking to annotate a book. The first chapter is filled with complex family trees and wars, so I'd suggest skipping ahead to learn about Caligula's awesome reign of the Roman Empire. Bresnan, Patrick. “Awakening: An Introduction to the History of Eastern Thought.” Amazon , Routledge, 2021, www.amazon.com/Awakening-Introduction-Hist...

  Confucianism, Daoism, and Society Two of the major schools of thoughts within Chinese culture are Confucianism and Daoism. Confucianism is based on Confucius’ writings that outline “the right social order” (Bresnan 301). He believed the government should “be the leader and protector of the people” and establish order in society” (Bresnan 308). Daoism is an abstract idea, a philosophy that honors the order of nature and seeks to live in harmony with it.  A majority of Chinese society is based on Confucius’ “grand ideal[s]” (Bresnan 301). It began with Confucius’ education system, which ensured that the government would employ people who were capable of running the government he envisioned. This system was “based largely on… the classics of Chinese literature,” as well as etiquette and philosophy (Bresnan 309). Ideally, this education system would be open to all while still preserving social classes. Print of Confucius His philosophy also stretched to relationships- Confucius ...