The Best-Selling Mexican Biography Books of All Time

The award-winning and bestselling classic memoir about a young Chicano gang member surviving the dangerous streets of East Los Angeles, now featuring a new introduction by the author. Winner of the Carl Sandburg Literary Award, hailed as a New York Times notable book, and read by hundreds of thousands, Always Running is the searing true story of one man’s life in a Chicano gang—and his heroic struggle to free himself from its grip. By age twelve, Luis Rodriguez was a veteran of East Los Angeles gang warfare.

Lured by a seemingly invincible gang culture, he witnessed countless shootings, beatings, and arrests and then watched with increasing fear as gang life claimed friends and family members. Before long, Rodriguez saw a way out of the barrio through education and the power of words and successfully broke free from years of violence and desperation. Achieving success as an award-winning poet, he was sure the streets would haunt him no more—until his young son joined a gang. Rodriguez fought for his child by telling his own story in Always Running, a vivid memoir that explores the motivations of gang life and cautions against the death and destruction that inevitably claim its participants. At times heartbreakingly sad and brutal, Always Running is ultimately an uplifting true story, filled with hope, insight, and a hard-earned lesson for the next generation.

“Thompson’s book provides not only a powerfully written history of a Mexican American who symbolizes ‘resistance to oppression and intolerance,’ but also a clear, cogent explanation of the relationship between the United States and Mexico as they face each other across the Texas border.”—Journal of American History. “Jerry Thompson has produced the definitive work on one of the most controversial and influential Mexicano/Tejano figures of Texas and Southwestern history . . . .

With stunning clarity and balance, Thompson has provided a much-needed narrative interpretation that brings to life one of the more colorful figures of Texas, Border, and Chicano histories.”—Hispanic Outlook. “Jerry Thompson has performed a difficult feat: comprehensively examining a life that had almost as many turns as a circle.”—Journal of Southern History. “This is the most well-researched and thorough account of Juan Nepomuceno Cortina’s life that we have. . . . This book certainly shows that Cortina ‘established his niche in the grand sweep of time,’ but it will be left to other scholars to follow the many trails hinted at by Thompson.”—Western Historical Quarterly. “Jerry Thompson’s sympathetic but balanced biography is a ‘must read’ for all students of Texas history and Anglo-Hispanic relations.”—East Texas Historical Journal.

Antonio López de Santa Anna (1794–1876) is one of the most famous, and infamous, figures in Mexican history. Six times the country’s president, he is consistently depicted as a traitor, a turncoat, and a tyrant—the exclusive cause of all of Mexico’s misfortunes following the country’s independence from Spain. He is also, as this biography makes clear, grossly misrepresented. Drawing on seventeen years of research into the politics of independent Mexico, Will Fowler provides a revised picture of Santa Anna’s life, with new insights into his activities in his bailiwick of Veracruz and in his numerous military engagements.

The Santa Anna who emerges from this book is an intelligent, dynamic, yet reluctant leader, ingeniously deceptive at times, courageous and patriotic at others. His extraordinary story is that of a middle-class provincial criollo, a high-ranking officer, an arbitrator, a dedicated landowner, and a political leader who tried to prosper personally and help his country develop at a time of severe and repeated crises, as the colony that was New Spain gave way to a young, troubled, besieged, and beleaguered Mexican nation. Deconstructing the myths surrounding Santa Anna’s life, the book offers a fresh view of a critical chapter in Mexico’s history.

Discusses the life and times of Jose Clemente Orozco, who has been called "the most original and powerful mural painter" in Mexico despite having been badly injured in an explosion as a teenager.

Frida Kahlo was born in 1907 to parents of German and Spanish descent, in Coyoacan, outside Mexico City. After contracting polio at age six, Frida also suffered severe injuries in a bus accident. Her time spent in recovery turned her toward a painting career. These experiences, combined with a difficult marriage to the artist Diego Rivera, generated vibrant works depicting Frida's experiences with pain as well as the symbolism and spirit of Mexican culture. Though she died in 1954, interest in her work continues to grow, with museum exhibitions and publications around the world.

This biography will introduce art students and adult readers to one of the Latino culture's most beloved artists. In 2002, the film Frida introduced the artist and her works to a new audience. In 2007, the 100th anniversary of Kahlo's birth, a major exhibition of her work was held at the Museum of the Fine Arts Palace in Mexico. In 2007 through 2008, another major exhibition began its journey to museums throughout the United States.

David Alfaro Siqueiros (1896-1974) was a revolutionary artist and lifetime political activist, whose life story reads like a novel. A founder of the Mexican Mural Movement, he developed a modern realism in the murals he painted in Mexico, Los Angeles, Argentina, Chile and Cuba, which provoked acts of censureship. Though primarily a muralist, he also painted expressive portraits, still lifes and landscapes. Self-proclaimed ideologue of the mural movement, he critiqued modern art and artists in journals which he published.

He fought in the Mexican Revolution, organized workers, commanded front-line troops in Spain and led protests against fascism and imperialism. Imprisoned for his militant activities in Mexico, he was also exiled or deported from Mexico, the United States, Argentina and Spain. Since his art and activism encompassed many important issues and personalities in art and politics, his biography is a capsule history of modern Mexico and the twentieth century.

Provides the biography of Hank Aguirre, the all-star pitcher, successful businessman, and humanitarian, covering the diverse years of his life and the accomplishments he made along the way in sports and beyond.

An in-depth biography of Mexican artist Frida Kahlo details her haunting and original painting style, her turbulent marriage to muralist Diego Rivera, her association with communism, and her love of Mexican culture and folklore.

In 1543, in a small village in Mexico, a group of missionary friars received from a mysterious Indian messenger an unusual carved image of Christ crucified. The friars declared it the most poignantly beautiful depiction of Christ's suffering they had ever seen. Known as the Cristo Aparecido (the "Christ Appeared"), it quickly became one of the most celebrated religious images in colonial Mexico. Today, the Cristo Aparecido is among the oldest New World crucifixes and is the beloved patron saint of the Indians of Totolapan.

In Biography of a Mexican Crucifix, Jennifer Scheper Hughes traces popular devotion to the Cristo Aparecido over five centuries of Mexican history. Each chapter investigates a single incident in the encounter between believers and the image. Through these historical vignettes, Hughes explores and reinterprets the conquest of and mission to the Indians; the birth of an indigenous, syncretic Christianity; the violent processes of independence and nationalization; and the utopian vision of liberation theology. Hughes reads all of these through the popular devotion to a crucifix that over the centuries becomes a key protagonist in shaping local history and social identity. This book will be welcomed by scholars and students of religion, Latin American history, anthropology, and theology.

Two-time governor of Alta, California and prominent businessman after the U.S. annexation, Pío de Jesus Pico was a politically savvy Californio who thrived in both the Mexican and the American periods. This is the first biography of Pico, whose life vibrantly illustrates the opportunities and risks faced by Mexican Americans in those transitional years. Carlos Manuel Salomon breathes life into the story of Pico, who—despite his mestizo-black heritage—became one of the wealthiest men in California thanks to real estate holdings and who was the last major Californio political figure with economic clout.

Salomon traces Pico’s complicated political rise during the Mexican era, leading a revolt against the governor in 1831 that swept him into that office. During his second governorship in 1845 Pico fought in vain to save California from the invading forces of the United States. Pico faced complex legal and financial problems under the American regime. Salomon argues that it was Pico’s legal struggles with political rivals and land-hungry swindlers that ultimately resulted in the loss of Pico’s entire fortune. Yet as the most litigious Californio of his time, he consistently demonstrated his refusal to become a victim. Pico is an important transitional figure whose name still resonates in many Southern California locales. His story offers a new view of California history that anticipates a new perspective on the multicultural fabric of the state.