The Lending Library at CLAIS offers materials to help teachers incorporate Latin American content into their classrooms. All materials are available to teachers free of charge.
For information on borrowing resources, please contact Outreach Coordinator Sarah Birdwell at 615.343.1837 or via email at sarah.b.birdwell@vanderbilt.edu.
Note: See the following website for a variety of free resources on Latin America: www.outreachworld.org.
The following lesson plans and curriculum materials were developed by teachers who participated in our 2007 summer institute Mexico, Past and Present :
African Diaspora in Latin America
The Atlantic Slave Trade
David Northrup. Houghton Mifflin, 2005. 203 pages.
Features a variety of secondary-source essays that are carefully edited for both content and length, making this single volume a convenient alternative to course packets or multiple monographs. Most often used as a supplementary text for upper-level courses.
Recommendation: High School and College.
Black Society in Spanish Florida
Jane Landers. University of Illinois Press, 1999. 390 pages.
The first extensive study of the African-American community under colonial Spanish rule, Black Society in Spanish Florida provides a vital counterweight to the better-known dynamics of the Anglo slave South.
Recommendation: High School and College.
Flight: The Story of Virgil Richardson, a Tuskegee Airman in Mexico
Ben Vinson III. Palgrave Macmillan, 2004. 224 pages.
Richardson, a Tuskegee Airman unwilling to live with the racial constraints he found upon returning to the U.S. following World War II, eventually relocated to Mexico, joining a community of black expatriates. In this fascinating memoir, Richardson and Vinson collaborate in recalling Richardson's path to military service, his departure for Mexico in 1950, and his life with as part of the diaspora experience of former black military men living in Mexico, liberated from the racial tensions of the U.S. This is a revealing look at an overlooked part of black history on the American continent.
Recommendation: High School and College
Fort Mose: Colonial America's Black Fortress of Freedom
Kathleen Deagan and Darcie MacMahon. University Press of Florida, 1995. 54 pages.
More than 200 years ago African-born slaves risked their lives to escape from a South Carolina plantation, searching for Florida Spaniards who could give them freedom via an underground railroad. This considers the Spanish fort which provided sanctuary for over 200 African fugitives, telling of Fort Mose and the people who lived there.
Recommendation: Middle and High School
Fort Mose Education Packet
Curriculum materials authored by the Florida Museum of Natural History designed to enhance student understanding of life at the free black community of Fort Mose in Spanish Florida.
Recommendation: Middle and High School
From Another World
Ana Maria Machado. Groundwood Books, 2005. 128 pages.
In the course of renovating a farmhouse and its outbuildings in Brazil into a country inn, a group of young friends come upon Rosario, the ghost of a nineteenth-century slave girl. She tells them of a tragic event that killed her and most of her family and begs for their help. The youths then piece together the story, drawing readers into the historical drama that took place on the same site. Machado received the Hans Christian Andersen Medal for her work in 2000.
Recommendation: Grades 4 - 8
Nina Bonita
Ana Maria Machado. Kane-Miller Book Publishers, 2001. 24 pages.
The story of a white rabbit who is very impressed with his human friend, Nina Bonita's, dark skin. When the rabbit decides that he wants to look like Nina, he asks her how she came to be the color she is. Nina doesn't really know why, but her mother does, and she explains all to the rabbit. Color illustrations accompany the text.
Recommendation: Pre-school - 3rd Grade
Ancient American Civilizations
The Ancient American World
William Fash and Mary E. Lyons. Oxford University Press, 2005. 176 pp.
The Ancient American World uses a wide variety of primary sources to tell the story of the native cultures that have existed in the Americas for thousands of years. In this book, the wonders of Mesoamerica and the Andes are explored through engaging narratives based on documents and artifacts ranging from classic Mayan inscriptions to the Aztec Great Temple.
Recommendation: Grades 6-8
Ancient Maya: The Rise and Fall of a Rainforest Civilization
Arthur Demarest. Cambridge University Press, 2005. 390 pp.
Provides new explanation for the long-standing mystery of the ninth-century abandonment of most of the great Mayan rainforest cities. Draws lessons from the history of the Classic Maya cities for contemporary society and for the ongoing struggles and resurgence of the modern Maya peoples.
Recommendation: Grades 10 - 12 and college.
The Broken Spears: The Aztec Account of the Conquest of Mexico
Miguel Leon-Portilla. Beacon Press, Boston, 1992. 196 pp.
Tells the story of the Spanish conquest from the Aztec perspective.
Recommendation: Grades 9 - 12 and college.
A Forest of Kings: The Untold Story of the Ancient Maya
Linda Schele and David Freidel. William Morrow and Company, Inc., New York, 1990. 542 pp.
The recent interpretation of Maya hieroglyphs has given us the first written history of the New World as it existed before the European invasion. Two central figures in the massive effort to decode the glyphs make this history available for the first time in all its detail.
Recommendation: Grades 10 -12 and college.
Popol Vuh: A Sacred Book of the Maya
Victor Montejo, illustrated by Luis Garay. Groundwood Books, Toronto, 1999. 85 pp.
A beautifully illustrated collection of Mayan tales of creation and ancestry.
Recommendation: Grades 4 and up; ideal example of mythology for advanced grades.
Dancing with Cuba: A Memoir of the Revolution
Alma Guillermoprieto. Vintage Press, 2005. 304 pp.
Award-winning Mexican-American journalist Alma Guillermoprieto recounts her experience as a teacher at Cuba's National School of Dance in Havana in 1970. The book recounts the author's political education and confrontation with the realities of the Cuban revolution.
Recommendation: High school and college.
The History of Cuba
Clifford L. Staten. Palgrave Macmillan, 2005. 176 pp.
An accessible and current history of Cuba. Tells Cuba's history in eight chronological chapters, beginning with its days as a Spanish colony and ending with modern-day political relations.
Recommendation: High school and college.
The Day of the Dead/El Día de los Muertos
The Festival of the Bones/El Festival de las Calaveras
Luis San Vicente, illustrated by Bryan Byrd. Cinco Puntos Press, El Paso, Texas, 2002. 32 pp.
This bilingual storybook with a poem, in both English and Spanish, illustrated by a whimsical group of skeletons celebrating the Mexican Day of the Dead. The book closes with more detailed information on the celebration, including suggestions for building altars and recipes for Pan de Muerto and sugar skulls.
Recommendation: Grades K - 4.
Calavera Abecedario: A Day of the Dead Alphabet Book
Jeanette Winter. Harcourt Books Inc., 2004. 48 pp.
This bilingual illustrated children's short story depicts skeletons involved with activities and objects associated with the Mexican Day of the Dead.
Recommendation: Grades K - 4.
In the Time of the Butteflies
Julia Alvarez. Plume, 2005. 432 pages.
Story of the Mirabal sisters and their struggle against the oppressive regime of Rafael Trujillo.
Recommendation: High School and College
The Kingdom of This World
Alejo Carpentier. Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 2006. 190 pages.
Novel tells the story of the overthrow of French rule in Haiti and its aftermath.
Recommended: High School and College.
Twentieth Century Latin American Poetry: A Bilingual Anthology
Stephen Tapscott, Editor. University of Texas Press, 1996. 444 pages.
A collection of poems from 20th-century Latin American poets. Text in both English and Spanish.
Recommendation: High School
The Mexicans: A Personal Portrait of a People
Patrick Oster. Harper Perennial, 2002. 352 pages.
To correct Americans' lack of understanding of Mexico, Oster combines human interest stories, many collected during his years as a Knight-Ridder reporter in Mexico, with carefully interwoven information on and analysis of political, economic, and social issues. The subjects of his short biographies are a cross-section of Mexicans.
Recommended: High School and College.
Mexico: From the Olmecs to the Aztecs
Michael D. Coe and Rex Koontz. Thames and Hudson, 2002. 248 pages.
All regions and major prehistoric civilizations of prehistoric Mexico are covered with the exception of the Maya. The complexities of Mexico's ancient cultures are perceptively presented and interpreted.
Recommendations: High School and College.
Mexico: The Struggle for Democratic Development
Daniel C. Levy and Kathleen Bruhn. University of California Press, 2006. 375 pages.
This engaging book provides a broad and accessible analysis of Mexico's contemporary struggle for democratic development. Now completely revised, it brings up to date issues ranging from electoral reform and accountability to drug trafficking, migration, and NAFTA. It also considers the rapidly changing role of Mexico's mass and elite groups, and its national institutions, including the media, the military, and the Church.
Recommended: High School and College.
Seven Myths of the Spanish Conquest
Matthew Restall. Oxford University Press, 2004. 218 pages.
According to historical consensus, the Spanish conquest of the New World was a cataclysm in which superior European technology and organization overwhelmed Native American civilizations. In this daring revisionist critique, Restall describes a far more complex process in which Indians were central participants on both sides of the struggle.
Recommended: High School and College.
