Books

You can find these books in our Trinity library! Contact the librarian for more info.

This Book Is Anti-Racist: 20 Lessons on how to Wake Up, Take Action, and Do the Work

Originally published: January 7, 2020

Author: Tiffany Jewell

Illustrator: Aurelia Durand

ISBN: 9780711245204

Short Summary (from Scholastic.com): Where does racism come from and what can we do to disrupt it? Learn about social identities, the history of racism, and how readers can use their anti-racist lens and voice to move the world toward equity and liberation.

How to Be an Antiracist

Originally published: August 13, 2019

Author: Ibram X. Kendi

ISBN: 9780525509288

Short Summary: Kendi is the founder of the Antiracism Research and Policy Center. His New York Times bestselling book explains why neutrality is not an option. In order to stand against racism, we have to be actively anti-racist—and this book is the instruction manual.

Hood Feminism

Originally published: February 25, 2020

Author: Mikki Kendall

ISBN: 9780525560548

Short Summary: Today's feminist movement has a glaring blind spot, and paradoxically, it is women. Mainstream feminists rarely talk about meeting basic needs as a feminist issue, argues Mikki Kendall, but food insecurity, access to quality education, safe neighborhoods, a living wage, and medical care are all feminist issues. All too often, however, the focus is not on basic survival for the many, but on increasing privilege for the few. That feminists refuse to prioritize these issues has only exacerbated the age-old problem of both internecine discord and women who rebuff at carrying the title. Moreover, prominent white feminists broadly suffer from their own myopia with regard to how things like race, class, sexual orientation, and ability intersect with gender. How can we stand in solidarity as a movement, Kendall asks, when there is the distinct likelihood that some women are oppressing others? Today's feminist movement has a glaring blind spot, and paradoxically, it is women. Mainstream feminists rarely talk about meeting basic needs as a feminist issue, argues Mikki Kendall, but food insecurity, access to quality education, safe neighborhoods, a living wage, and medical care are all feminist issues. All too often, however, the focus is not on basic survival for the many, but on increasing privilege for the few. That feminists refuse to prioritize these issues has only exacerbated the age-old problem of both internecine discord and women who rebuff at carrying the title. Moreover, prominent white feminists broadly suffer from their own myopia with regard to how things like race, class, sexual orientation, and ability intersect with gender. How can we stand in solidarity as a movement, Kendall asks, when there is the distinct likelihood that some women are oppressing others?

They Can't Kill Us All

Originally published: November 15, 2016

Author: Wesley Lowery

ISBN: 9780316312479

Short Summary: A timely book about police violence against Black communities in the United States. From Ferguson to Charleston to Baltimore, Lowery interviews victim families and reports from the most heavily policed cities in our nation. In an effort to grasp the magnitude of the repose to Michael Brown's death and understand the scale of the problem police violence represents, Lowery speaks to Brown's family and the families of other victims other victims' families as well as local activists. By posing the question, "What does the loss of any one life mean to the rest of the nation?" Lowery examines the cumulative effect of decades of racially biased policing in segregated neighborhoods with failing schools, crumbling infrastructure and too few jobs.

White Fragility: Why It's So Hard for White People to Talk about Racism

Originally published: June 26, 2018

Author: Robin DiAngelo

ISBN: 9780807047408

Short Summary: A New York Times bestselling book that examines “white fragility”—what it is, why it exists, and how it’s a pivotal player in continued racial inequality. This book teaches us how to dismantle privilege, uncenter ourselves from conversations, and listen to our Black communities.

Living Beyond Borders: Growing up Mexican in America

Originally published: August 17, 2021

Author: Margarita Longoria

ISBN: 05932404972

Short Summary: In this mixed-media collection of short stories, personal essays, poetry, and comics, this celebrated group of authors share the borders they have crossed, the struggles they have pushed through, and the two cultures they continue to navigate as Mexican Americans. Living Beyond Borders is at once an eye-opening, heart-wrenching, and hopeful love letter from the Mexican American community to today's young readers.

Black Enough: Stories of Being Young & Black in America

Originally published: January 7, 2019

Authors: June Sarpong, Renee Watson, Varian Johnson, Leah Henderson, Lamar Giles, Kekla Magoon, Jason Reynolds, Brandy Colbert, Tochi Onyebuchi, Liara Tamani, Jay Coles, Rita Williams-Garcia, Tracey Baptiste, Dhonielle Clayton, Justina Ireland, Coe Booth, Nic Stone, and Ibi Zoboi.

ISBN: 9780062698735

Short Summary: Black Enough is a star-studded anthology edited by National Book Award finalist Ibi Zoboi that will delve into the closeted thoughts, hidden experiences, and daily struggles of black teens across the country. From a spectrum of backgrounds—urban and rural, wealthy and poor, mixed race, immigrants, and more—Black Enough showcases diversity within diversity.

Whether it’s New York Times bestselling author Jason Reynolds writing about #blackboyjoy or Newbery Honor-winning author Renee Watson talking about black girls at camp in Portland, or emerging author Jay Coles’s story about two cowboys kissing in the south—Black Enough is an essential collection full of captivating coming-of-age stories about what it’s like to be young and black in America.

The Insiders

Originally published: September 21, 2021

Author: Mark Oshiro

ISBN: 0063008106

Short Summary: “San Francisco and Orangevale may be in the same state, but for Héctor Muñoz, they might as well be a million miles apart. Back home, being gay didn’t mean feeling different. At Héctor’s new school, he couldn’t feel more alone.

Most days, Héctor just wishes he could disappear. And he does. Right into the janitor’s closet. (Yes, he sees the irony.) But one day, when the door closes behind him, Héctor discovers he’s stumbled into a room that shouldn’t be possible. A room that connects him with two new friends from different corners of the country—and opens the door to a life-changing year full of friendship, adventure, and just a little bit of magic


Don't Ask Me Where I'm From

Originally published: July 27, 2021

Author: Jennifer De Leon

ISBN: 1534438254

Short Summary: Liliana Cruz is hitting a wall—or rather, walls. There’s the wall her mom has put up ever since Liliana’s dad left—again. There’s the wall that delineates Liliana’s diverse inner-city Boston neighborhood from Westburg, the wealthy—and white—suburban high school she’s just been accepted into. And there’s the wall Liliana creates within herself, because to survive at Westburg, she can’t just lighten up, she has to whiten up.


So what if she changes her name? So what if she changes the way she talks? So what if she’s seeing her neighborhood in a different way? But then light is shed on some hard truths: It isn’t that her father doesn’t want to come home—he can’t…and her whole family is in jeopardy. And when racial tensions at school reach a fever pitch, the walls that divide feel insurmountable. But a wall isn’t always a barrier. It can be a foundation for something better. And Liliana must choose: Use this foundation as a platform to speak her truth or risk crumbling under its weight.

When We Make It

Originally published: September 21, 2021

Author: Elisabet Velasquez

ISBN: 059332448X

Short Summary: Sarai is a first-generation Puerto Rican eighth-grader who can see with clarity the truth, pain, and beauty of the world both inside and outside her Bushwick apartment. Together with her older sister Estrella, she navigates the strain of family traumas and the systemic pressures of toxic masculinity and housing insecurity in a rapidly gentrifying Brooklyn. Sarai questions the society around her, her Boricua identity, and the life she lives with determination and an open heart, learning to celebrate herself in a way that she has been denied.

When We Make It is a love letter to anyone who was taught to believe that they would not make it. To those who feel their emotions before they can name them. To those who still may not have all the language but they have their story. Velasquez’s debut novel is sure to leave an indelible mark on all who read it.

Where I belong

Originally published: September 7, 2021

Author: Marcia Argueta Mickelson

ISBN: 1541597974

Short Summary: An immigrant teen fights for her family, her future, and the place she calls home.

In the spring of 2018, Guatemalan American high school senior Milagros “Millie” Vargas knows her life is about to change. She’s lived in Corpus Christi, Texas, ever since her parents sought asylum there when she was a baby. Now a citizen, Millie devotes herself to school and caring for her younger siblings while her mom works as a housekeeper for the wealthy Wheeler family. With college on the horizon, Millie is torn between attending her dream school and staying close to home, where she knows she’s needed. She’s disturbed by what’s happening to asylum-seekers at the U.S.-Mexico border, but she doesn’t see herself as an activist or a change-maker. She’s just trying to take care of her own family.

Then Mr. Wheeler, a U.S. Senate candidate, mentions Millie’s achievements in a campaign speech about “deserving” immigrants. It doesn’t take long for people to identify Millie’s family and place them at the center of a statewide immigration debate. Faced with journalists, trolls, anonymous threats, and the Wheelers' good intentions―especially those of Mr. Wheeler's son, Charlie―Millie must confront the complexity of her past, the uncertainty of her future, and her place in the country that she believed was home.

Sister Outsider

Originally published: August 1, 2007

Author: Audre Lorde

ISBN: 1580911862

Short Summary: In this charged collection of fifteen essays and speeches, Lorde takes on sexism, racism, ageism, homophobia, and class, and propounds social difference as a vehicle for action and change. Her prose is incisive, unflinching, and lyrical, reflecting struggle but ultimately offering messages of hope. This commemorative edition includes a new foreword by Lorde-scholar and poet Cheryl Clarke, who celebrates the ways in which Lorde's philosophies resonate more than twenty years after they were first published.

These landmark writings are, in Lorde's own words, a call to “never close our eyes to the terror, to the chaos which is Black which is creative which is female which is dark which is rejected which is messy which is . . . ”

Americanah

Originally published: March 4, 2014

Author: Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

ISBN: 9780307455925

Short Summary: Ifemelu and Obinze are young and in love when they depart military-ruled Nigeria for the West. Beautiful, self-assured Ifemelu heads for America, where despite her academic success, she is forced to grapple with what it means to be black for the first time.


Quiet, thoughtful Obinze had hoped to join her, but with post-9/11 America closed to him, he instead plunges into a dangerous, undocumented life in London. Fifteen years later, they reunite in a newly democratic Nigeria, and reignite their passion—for each other and for their homeland.

Freedom is a Constant Struggle

Originally published: February 9, 2016

Author: Angela Y. Davis

ISBN: 1608465640

Short Summary: Reflecting on the importance of black feminism, intersectionality, and prison abolitionism for today's struggles, Davis discusses the legacies of previous liberation struggles, from the Black Freedom Movement to the South African anti-Apartheid movement. She highlights connections and analyzes today's struggles against state terror, from Ferguson to Palestine.

Facing a world of outrageous injustice, Davis challenges us to imagine and build the movement for human liberation. And in doing so, she reminds us that "Freedom is a constant struggle."

Academic Ableism

Originally published: 2017

Author: Timothy Dolmage

ISBN: 9780472073719

Short Summary: Academic Ableism brings together disability studies and institutional critique to recognize the ways that disability is composed in and by higher education, and rewrites the spaces, times, and economies of disability in higher education to place disability front and center. For too long, argues Jay Timothy Dolmage, disability has been constructed as the antithesis of higher education, often positioned as a distraction, a drain, a problem to be solved. The ethic of higher education encourages students and teachers alike to accentuate ability, valorize perfection, and stigmatize anything that hints at intellectual, mental, or physical weakness, even as we gesture toward the value of diversity and innovation. Examining everything from campus accommodation processes, to architecture, to popular films about college life, Dolmage argues that disability is central to higher education, and that building more inclusive schools allows better education for all. (Book is available for free on the University of Michigan website. )