Image descriptions:
Image one: E-book titled Food across Borders (2017) - synopsis: The act of eating defines and redefines borders. What constitutes "American" in our cuisine has always depended on a liberal crossing of borders, from "the line in the sand" that separates Mexico and the United States, to the grassland boundary with Canada, to the imagined divide in our collective minds between "our" food and "their" food. Immigrant workers have introduced new cuisines and ways of cooking that force the nation to question the boundaries between "us" and "them." The stories told in Food across Borders highlight the contiguity between the intimate decisions we make as individuals concerning what we eat and the social and geopolitical processes we enact to secure nourishment, territory, and belonging.
Image two: E-book titled La Florida: Five Hundred Years of Hispanic Presence (2014) - synopsis: Commemorating Juan Ponce de León's landfall on the Atlantic coast of Florida, this ambitious volume explores five centuries of Hispanic presence in the New World peninsula, reflecting on the breadth and depth of encounters between the different lands and cultures. Melding history, literature, anthropology, music, culture, and sociology, La Florida is a unique presentation of the Hispanic roots that run deep in Florida's past and present and will assuredly shape its future.
Image one: E-book titled Ethics and Accountability on the U.S. Supreme Court: An Analysis of Recusal Practices (2017) synopsis: Do US Supreme Court justices withdraw from cases when they are supposed to? What happens when the Court is down a member? In Ethics and Accountability on the US Supreme Court, Robert J. Hume provides the first comprehensive examination of the causes and consequences of recusal behavior on the Supreme Court. Using original data, and with rich attention to historical detail including media commentary about recusals, he systematically analyzes the factors that influence Supreme Court recusal, a process which has so far been shrouded in secrecy.
Image two: E-book titled The Death Penalty: What's Keeping It Alive (2014) - synopsis: The United States is divided about the death penalty: 17 states have banned it, while the remaining states have not. From wrongful convictions to botched executions, capital punishment is fraught with controversy. In The Death Penalty: What's Keeping It Alive, award-winning criminal defense attorney Andrea Lyon turns a critical eye towards the reasons why the death penalty remains active in most states, in spite of well-documented flaws in the justice system. The book opens with an overview of the history of the death penalty in America, then digs into the reasons capital punishment is a fixture in the justice system of most states.
Image one: E-book titled Sounds of Belonging: U.S. Spanish-Language Radio and Public Advocacy (2014) - synopsis: The last two decades have produced continued Latino population growth, and marked shifts in both communications and immigration policy. Since the 1990s, Spanish-language radio has dethroned English-language radio stations in major cities across the United States, taking over the number one spot in Los Angeles, Houston, Miami, and New York City. Investigating the cultural and political history of U.S. Spanish-language broadcasts throughout the twentieth century, Sounds of Belonging reveals how these changes have helped Spanish-language radio secure its dominance in the major U.S. radio markets.
Image two: E-book titled The Revolutionary Imaginations of Greater Mexico: Chicana/o Radicalism, Solidarity Politics, and Latin American Social Movements (2016) - synopsis: Bringing to life the stories of political teatristas, feminists, gunrunners, labor organizers, poets, journalists, ex-prisoners, and other revolutionaries, The Revolutionary Imaginations of Greater Mexico examines the inspiration Chicanas/os found in social movements in Mexico and Latin America from 1971 to 1979. Drawing on fifteen years of interviews and archival research, including examinations of declassified government documents from Mexico, this study uncovers encounters between activists and artists across borders while sharing a socialist-oriented, anticapitalist vision.
Image one: E-book titled After Roe: The Lost History of the Abortion Debate (2015) - synopsis: Forty years after the U.S. Supreme Court handed down its decision legalizing abortion, Roe v. Wade continues to make headlines. After Roe: The Lost History of the Abortion Debate cuts through the myths and misunderstandings to present a clear-eyed account of cultural and political responses to the landmark 1973 ruling in the decade that followed. The grassroots activists who shaped the discussion after Roe, Mary Ziegler shows, were far more fluid and diverse than the partisans dominating the debate today.
Image two: E-book titled Reframing Rights: Bioconstitutionalism in the Genetic Age (2011) - synopsis: Reframing Rights explores the evolving relationship of biology, biotechnology, and law through a series of national and cross-national case studies. Chapters examine such topics as national cloning and xenotransplant policies; the politics of stem cell research in Britain, Germany, and Italy; DNA profiling and DNA databases in criminal law; clinical trials in India and the United States; the GM crop controversy in Britain; and precautionary policymaking in the European Union. These cases demonstrate changes of constitutional significance in the relations among human bodies, selves, science, and the state.
Image one: E-book titled The Chicana/o Hip Hop Nation: Politics of a New Millennial Mestizaje (2013) - synopsis: Far from antiquated concepts of mestizaje, recent scholarship has shown that Mexicana/o and Chicana/o culture is a mixture of indigenous, African, and Spanish and other European peoples and cultures. No one reflects this rich blend of cultures better than Chicano/a rappers, whose lyrics and iconography can help to deepen our understanding of what it means to be Chicano/a or Mexicano/a today. While some identify as Mexican mestizos, others identify as indigenous people or base their identities on their class and racial/ethnic makeup. No less significant is the intimate level of contact between Chicano/as and black Americans. Via a firm theoretical foundation, Pancho McFarland explores the language and ethos of Chicano/a and Mexicano/a hip hop and sheds new light on three distinct identities reflected in the music: indigenous/Mexica, Mexican nationalist/immigrant, and street hopper.
Image two: E-book titled Mexicana Fashions: Politics, Self-Adornment, and Identity Construction (2020) - synopsis: Collecting the perspectives of scholars who reflect on their own relationships to particular garments, analyze the politics of dress, and examine the role of consumerism and entrepreneurialism in the production of creating and selling a style, Mexicana Fashions examines and searches for meaning in these visible, performative aspects of identity.
Image one: Constitution Week
Image two: E-book titled African Americans and the First Amendment: The Case for Liberty and Equality (2019) - synopsis: Utilizes an interdisciplinary approach to demonstrate that a strong commitment to civil liberty and to racial equality are mutually supportive. This crucial connection is evidenced throughout US history, from the days of colonial and antebellum slavery to Jim Crow: in the landmark US Supreme Court decision in 1937 freeing the black communist Angelo Herndon; in the struggles and victories of the civil rights movement, from the late 1930s to the late ’60s; and in the historical and modern debates over hate speech restrictions. Liberty and equality can conflict in individual cases, Shiell argues, but there is no fundamental conflict between them. Robust First Amendment values protect and encourage demands for racial equality while weak First Amendment values, in contrast, lead to censorship and a chilling of demands for racial equality.
Image two: E-book titled A Constitutional History of the U.S. Supreme Court (2015) - synopsis: Presents a concise overview and general history for readers and students in constitutional history and politics, one that will also make an excellent fact-filled source book for lawyers and political scientists. The chapters deal with leading decisions of successive courts and begin with brief biographies of the justices on the courts. Famous cases from Marbury v Madison, to the Dred-Scott decision, Brown v Board of Education, Roe v Wade, up to the Roberts court decision on the constitutionality of Obamacare are discussed. Four appendices deal with the text of the Constitution and amendments, the court system, a chronological list of the justices with biographical details, and a chronological list of the membership on successive courts.
Image one: Hispanic Heritage Month
Image two: E-book titled Agent of Change: Adela Sloss-Vento - Mexican American, Civil Rights Activist, and Texas Feminist (2020) - synopsis: The essayist Adela Sloss-Vento (1901-1998) was a powerhouse of activism in South Texas’s Lower Rio Grande Valley throughout the Mexican American civil rights movement beginning in 1920 and the subsequent Chicano movement of the 1960s and 1970s. At last presenting the full story of Sloss-Vento's achievements, Agent of Change revives a forgotten history of a major female Latina leader.
Image two: E-book titled Latino Mayors: Political Change in the Postindustrial City (2018) - synopsis: The vibrant collection Latino Mayors features case studies of eleven Latino mayors in six American cities: San Antonio, Los Angeles, Denver, Hartford, Miami, and Providence. The editors and contributors analyze Latino mayors for their governing styles and policies. They describe how candidates shaped race, class, and economic issues--particularly in deracialized campaigns. Latino Mayors also addresses coalition politics, political incorporation, and how community groups operate, as well as the challenges these pioneers have faced in office from political tensions and governance issues that sometimes even harm Latinos.
