Our Migrant Souls: A Meditation on Race and the Meanings and Myths of Latino

WINNER OF THE KIRKUS PRIZE FOR NONFICTION Named One of The New York Times 100 Notable Books of 2023 One of Times 100 Must-Read Books of 2023 | A Top Ten Book of 2023 at Chicago Public Library A new book by the Pulitzer Prizewinning writer about the twenty-first-century Latino experience and identity. In Our Migrant Souls, the Pulitzer Prizewinning writer Hctor Tobar delivers a definitive and personal exploration of what it means to be Latino in the United States right now. Latino is the most open-ended and loosely defined of the major race categories in the United States, and also one of the most rapidly growing. Composed as a direct address to the young people who identify or have been classified as Latino, Our Migrant Souls is the first account of the historical and social forces that define Latino identity. Taking on the impacts of colonialism, public policy, immigration, media, and pop culture, Our Migrant Souls decodes the meaning of Latino as a racial and ethnic identity in the modern United States, and gives voice to the anger and the hopes of young Latino people who have seen Latinidad transformed into hateful tropes and who have faced insult and divisiona story as old as this country itself. Tobar translates his experience as not only a journalist and novelist but also a mentor, a leader, and an educator. He interweaves his own story, and that of his parents migration to the United States from Guatemala, into his account of his journey across the country to uncover something expansive, inspiring, true, and alive about the meaning of Latino in the twenty-first century. A new book by the Pulitzer Prizewinning writer about the twenty-first-century Latino experience and identity. In Our Migrant Souls, the Pulitzer Prizewinning writer Hctor Tobar delivers a definitive and personal exploration of what it means to be Latino in the United States right now. Latino is the most open-ended and loosely defined of the major race categories in the United States, and also one of the most rapidly growing. Composed as a direct address to the young people who identify or have been classified as Latino, Our Migrant Souls is the first account of the historical and social forces that define Latino identity. Taking on the impacts of colonialism, public policy, immigration, media, and pop culture, Our Migrant Souls decodes the meaning of Latino as a racial and ethnic identity in the modern United States, and gives voice to the anger and the hopes of young Latino people who have seen Latinidad transformed into hateful tropes and who have faced insult and divisiona story as old as this country itself. Tobar translates his experience as not only a journalist and novelist but also a mentor, a leader, and an educator. He interweaves his own story, and that of his parents migration to the United States from Guatemala, into his account of his journey across the country to uncover something expansive, inspiring, true, and alive about the meaning of Latino in the twenty-first century.