This exhibit celebrates Chicanx and Latinx life and knowledge production at Sac State through three lenses: community voices, student work in the classroom, and faculty and staff scholarship and work at Sac State. Together, these spotlights honor the people building Chicanx/Latinx knowledge, culture, and community both on campus and beyond.
Voces de Sacramento: Community Voices through Creative Writing
This display highlights Voces de Sacramento, an annual creative writing contest that invites community members of all ages, including high school and university students, to share original work in Spanish. Through poetry, short fiction, memoir, and other forms of creative expression, participants reflect on migration, identity, family, language, belonging, and life in the Sacramento region. The selected writings offer intimate perspectives on the experiences, memories, and aspirations that shape Chicanx and Latinx communities. Together, these voices document the richness and diversity of local life while affirming writing in Spanish as a meaningful form of cultural expression, community connection, and knowledge production. By bringing these works into the library, the exhibit celebrates the writers whose words preserve memory, challenge silence, and contribute to Sacramento’s evolving cultural history.
Books Recommended
- Alurista, editor. Festival de Flor y Canto: An Anthology of Chicano Literature. University of Southern California Press, 1976.
- Fetta, Stephanie, editor. The Chicano/Latino Literary Prize: An Anthology of Prize-Winning Fiction, Poetry, and Drama. Arte Público Press, 2008.
- Kanellos, Nicolás, et al., editors. En otra voz: Antología de la literatura hispana de los Estados Unidos. Arte Público Press, 2002.
- Lozano, Rosina. An American Language: The History of Spanish in the United States. University of California Press, 2018.
- Romero, Brenda, editor. Voces de Sacramento. 2021–2025. 5 vols. Sacramento State, Department of World Languages and Literatures.
Making a Counterpublic: Latino/a/x Identity, Culture, and Political Life (Curated by Dr. Kristina Flores Victor, Political Science)
This exhibit features student-created projects that explore Latino/a/x identity, history, culture, community, and politics through the lens of counterpublics, spaces where communities create and circulate their own meanings, narratives, and forms of political voice. Through zines, students examine different dimensions of Latino political life; redacted art projects transform historical and political texts to reveal new meanings and silences; board games reimagine political histories, institutions, identities, and inequalities through play; and community maps identify the cultural spaces, resources, and networks of politics, advocacy, and communication that make up Sacramento’s Latino/a/x counterpublic. Together, these projects from Political Science courses invite viewers to consider how political meaning is created not only through formal institutions, but also through culture, memory, place, community, and everyday life.
Books Recommended
- The Young Lords : a radical history / Johanna Fernández.
- The invisible workers of the U.S.-Mexico Bracero program : obreros olvidados / Ronald L. Mize.
- Consuming Mexican Labor : From the Bracero Program to NAFTA / Ronald Mize, Alicia Swords.
- Zoot suit riots / Roger Bruns.
- The Chicana and Chicano Movement: From Aztlán to Zapatistas
- Mexican Americans with moxie : a transgenerational history of el Movimiento Chicano in Ventura County, California, 1945-1975 / Frank P. Barajas.
- "We want better education!" : the 1960s Chicano student movement, school walkouts, and the quest for educational reform in South Texas / James B. Barrera.
- Border towns and border crossings : a history of the U.S.-Mexico divide / Roger Bruns.
- Guatemala-U.S. migration : transforming regions / by Susanne Jonas and Nestor Rodríguez.
- Grounds for dreaming : Mexican Americans, Mexican immigrants, and the California farmworker movement / Lori A. Flores.
Chicanx/Latinx Sac State Faculty and Staff
Showcasing the work of Chicanx/Latinx Sac State faculty and staff, highlights how our work on campus and beyond shape our collective understanding of Chicanx/Latinx history, identity, and community both within and beyond Sac State. This exhibit emphasizes how our scholarship and work advances Chicanx and Latinx studies, knowledge-production, and presence on campus and beyond; and illuminates how our work is central to the university’s mission of knowledge production that is both inclusive and critical.
Books Recommended
- Books Featured in the Exhibit
- Borunda, Rose. 2025. Erendira. Conocimientos Press, LLC
- Feliz, V. Araceli. & Buitrago, Vanessa. 2026. Latinas in educational leadership: A collection of counterstories from scholar practitioners. Cognella, Inc.
- Correa Álvarez, Ahmed. (2013). "Del Caribe a la Mitad del Mundo: inserción laboral y producción de espacios. Migración cubana en Ecuador."
- Correa Alvarez, Ahmed, and John Ermer, eds. 2024. Triscornia Migratory Camp: Empire, Public Health, and Exclusion in Cuba’s Ellis Island. Bloomsbury Publishing USA.
- Enriquez Soriano, Andres. (2025). Con todo en contra: Desafiando el destino. Editorial Salto al reverso.
- Other books by Chicanx/Latinx Faculty and Staff at Sac State
- Almeida, Paul, and Amalia Pérez Martín. 2022. Collective resistance to neoliberalism. Cambridge University Press, 2022.
- Almeida, Paul, and Amalia Perez Martin. 2023. "Resistencia colectiva al neoliberalismo."
- Barajas, Manuel. 2009. The Xaripu community across borders. Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press.
- Borunda, Rose M., and Angela Leslie. 2023. "Learning from the Path of Our Better Selves."
- Borunda, Rose M., Rolla E. Lewis, and Michael Mobley. 2013. What is the Color of Your Heart: A Humanist approach to diversity. Kendall Hunt.
- Bueno Holle, Juan. 2019. Information structure in Isthmus Zapotec narrative and conversation. Language science press.
- Feliz, Araceli, Denver J. Fowler, and Sarah Marie Jouganatos. 2023. LEADERSHIP: Theories, Styles, and Approaches in Education. Cognella Publishing, Inc.
- Quintana, Maria L. 2022. Contracting Freedom: Race, Empire, and US Guestworker Programs. University of Pennsylvania Press.
- Brooks, Jacqueline, Heidy Sarabia, and Aya Kimura Ida. 2024. Race and Ethnicity: The Sociological Mindful Approach. Second Edition. Cognella, Inc.