Our Migrant Souls, Hector Tobar
Our Migrant Souls, Hector Tobar
List: $19.99 | Sale: $13.99
Club: $9.99

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

Author: Héctor Tobar

Narrator: André Santana

Unabridged: 7 hr 33 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 05/09/2023


Synopsis

A new audiobook by the Pulitzer Prize–winning writer about the twenty-first-century Latino experience and identity.

"Latino" is the most open-ended and loosely defined of the major race categories in the United States. Our Migrant Souls: A Meditation on Race and the Meanings and Myths of "Latino" assembles the Pulitzer Prize winner Héctor Tobar's personal experiences as the son of Guatemalan immigrants and the stories told to him by his Latinx students to offer a spirited rebuke to racist ideas about Latino people. Our Migrant Souls decodes the meaning of "Latino" as a racial and ethnic identity in the modern United States, and seeks to give voice to the angst and anger of young Latino people who have seen latinidad transformed into hateful tropes about "illegals" and have faced insults, harassment, and division based on white insecurities and economic exploitation.

Investigating topics that include the US-Mexico border "wall," Frida Kahlo, urban segregation, gangs, queer Latino utopias, and the emergence of the cartel genre in TV and film, Tobar journeys across the country to expose something truer about the meaning of "Latino" in the twenty-first century.

A Macmillan Audio production from Farrar, Straus and Giroux.

About Héctor Tobar

Héctor Tobar is a Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist and novelist. He is the author of the critically acclaimed, New York Times bestseller, Deep Down Dark, as well as The Barbarian Nurseries, Translation Nation, and The Tattooed Soldier. Héctor is also a contributing writer for the New York Times opinion pages and an associate professor at the University of California, Irvine. He's written for The New Yorker, The Los Angeles Times and other publications. His short fiction has appeared in Best American Short Stories, L.A. Noir, Zyzzyva, and Slate. The son of Guatemalan immigrants, he is a native of Los Angeles, where he lives with his family.


Reviews

Goodreads review by Thomas on September 20, 2023

One of the best nonfiction books I’ve read this year, an incisive and powerful book about the experience of diverse Latinx people within the United States. Héctor Tobar writes about so many nuances of Latinx identity and experience, ranging from the border crisis/border trauma, colorism, colonialism......more

Goodreads review by lex on April 29, 2023

This book feels like a call to everyone who identifies with latinidad all around the United States. Race is, indeed, a performance, every single day, and for Latinos in the US it’s all about what labels, contexts and views white people ascribe to you. This book spoke to that constant identity crisis......more

Goodreads review by Xavier on January 17, 2024

On my daily commute, I pass enormous homes with long driveways and manicured lawns. During spring and summer, the verdant grasses and shrubs are trimmed by Latino peoples. Whenever I go to Target, or to a restaurant, Latino peoples are taking out the trash or collecting our empty plates. I can hear......more

Goodreads review by Giovanni on June 23, 2023

Our Migrant Souls is a beautiful, book-length essay filled with indignation, melancholy, and, most importantly, love. Love for Latinos, love for a mixing of races and cultures, love for breaking free of outdated, restrictive stories. Unlike his earlier Translation Nation: Defining a New American Ide......more

Goodreads review by Bilqees on September 30, 2023

4.5 stars. The prose just got a little bit too corny and/or predictable for me to love it as much as I've loved some nonfiction books on similar topics. Definitely a must-read for its accessibility and scope, however. Its content is beautiful and promising.......more


Awards

  • New York Times Book Review Notable Books of the Year
  • Kirkus Reviews Best Books of the Year
  • Carnegie Medal
  • Kirkus Prize Winner
  • Kirkus Prize Finalists
  • NPR Best Book of the Year
  • Amazon.com Best Books of the Year
  • CPL: Chicago Public Library Best of the Best
  • Audible.com Best of the Year
  • Time Magazine Best Books of the Year
  • Barnes and Noble Best New Books of the Year