New Book: Provocaciones,…

New Book by Rafaela Castro out in November!
Provocaciones, Letters From the Prettiest Girl in Arvin

A collection of sensitive essays that depict the lives of a close knit Mexican family living first in Arvin, in the San Joaquin Valley, and later in the San Francisco Bay Area. These insightful, loving, guilt ridden, and at times very sad narratives, reveal the religious, moral, cultural, and ethical values of a young girl raised in the 1950s and 1960s in a Mexican Catholic working class home. We are told stories about a special Mexican mother-daughter relationship; about loving one’s family but needing to leave it; about living in another country and loving it; and about the role of the Peace Corps in the lives of young Americans of the 1960s. The essays cover the years from the late 1930s to the 1990s.

Rafaela Castro was born in Bakersfield, California but has lived most of her life in the San Francisco Bay Area. She spent two years in Brazil with the Peace Corps before receiving degrees in English Literature, Library Science, and Folklore from the University of California, Berkeley. As an academic librarian she has lectured in Ethnic Bibliography and Chicano Studies at UC Berkeley, has written various articles, op-ed pieces, and “Latino Literature” in What Shall I Read Next?: Multicultural Literature.

She is the author of Dictionary of Chicano Folklore.
“This excellent volume will find an audience with folklorists, scholars, regionalists, and library researchers and will likely become indispensable for both educators and students.”
Library Journal

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