I am a native of Colorado My father Booker T. Sowell was the first Black family to own property in Jefferson County. Our family was the first Blacks to attend and graduate from a Jefferson County School. I wrote and published the history for the school district as well as for the city of Lakewood, Colorado. I am the author of "Moral obligation" as well as "Just One Moment In Time". I have traveled to many places around the world that has inspired and changed me in many different ways.

I am a native of Colorado My father Booker T. Sowell was the first Black family to own property in Jefferson County. Our family was the first Blacks to attend and graduate from a Jefferson County School. I wrote and published the history for the school district as well as for the city of Lakewood, Colorado. I am the author of "Moral obligation" as well as "Just One Moment In Time". I have traveled to many places around the world that has inspired and changed me in many different ways.

John Chasteen examines the history behind sexually suggestive dances (salsa, samba, and tango) that brought people of different social classes and races together in Latin America.

The function of dance in Latin/o American culture is the focus of the essays collected in Everynight Life. The contributors interpret how Latin/o culture expresses itself through dance, approaching the material from the varying perspectives of literary, cultural, dance, performance, queer, and feminist studies. Viewing dance as privileged sites of identity formation and cultural resistance in Latin/o America, Everynight Life translates the motion of bodies into speech, and the gestures of dance into a provocative socio-political grammar. This anthology looks at many modes of dance--including salsa, merengue, cumbia, rumba, mambo, tango, samba, and norteño--as models for the interplay of cultural memory and regional conflict. Barbara Browning's essay on capoeira, for instance, demonstrates how dance has been used as a literal form of resistance, while José Piedra explores the meanings conveyed by women of color dancing the rumba. Pieces such as Gustavo Perez Fírmat's "I Came, I Saw, I Conga'd" and Jorge Salessi's "Medics, Crooks, and Tango Queens" illustrate the lively scope of this volume's subject matter. Contributors. Barbara Browning, Celeste Fraser Delgado, Jane C. Desmond, Mayra Santos Febres, Juan Carlos Quintero Herencia, Josh Kun, Ana M. López, José Esteban Muñoz, José Piedra, Gustavo Perez Fírmat, Augusto C. Puleo, David Román, Jorge Salessi, Alberto Sandoval

Arguably the world's most popular partnered social dance form, salsa's significance extends well beyond the Latino communities which gave birth to it. The growing international and cross-cultural appeal of this Latin dance form, which celebrates its mixed origins in the Caribbean and in Spanish Harlem, offers a rich site for examining issues of cultural hybridity and commodification in the context of global migration. Salsa consists of countless dance dialects enjoyed by varied communities in different locales. In short, there is not one dance called salsa, but many. Spinning Mambo into Salsa, a history of salsa dance, focuses on its evolution in three major hubs for international commercial export-New York, Los Angeles, and Miami. The book examines how commercialized salsa dance in the 1990s departed from earlier practices of Latin dance, especially 1950s mambo. Topics covered include generational differences between Palladium Era mambo and modern salsa; mid-century antecedents to modern salsa in Cuba and Puerto Rico; tension between salsa as commercial vs. cultural practice; regional differences in New York, Los Angeles, and Miami; the role of the Web in salsa commerce; and adaptations of social Latin dance for stage performance. Throughout the book, salsa dance history is linked to histories of salsa music, exposing how increased separation of the dance from its musical inspiration has precipitated major shifts in Latin dance practice. As a whole, the book dispels the belief that one version is more authentic than another by showing how competing styles came into existence and contention. Based on over 100 oral history interviews, archival research, ethnographic participant observation, and analysis of Web content and commerce, the book is rich with quotes from practitioners and detailed movement description.

This collection of essays, curriculum units, and study guides on Latin American art and musical traditions is designed to help interested teachers take a comprehensive approach to teaching these subjects. The introduction features the essay, "Media Resources Available on Latin American Culture: A Survey of Art, Architecture, and Music Articles Appearing in Americas" (K. Murray). Section 1, The Visual Arts of Latin America, has the following articles: "The Latin American Box: Environmental Aesthetics in the Classroom" (R. Robkin); "Mascaras y Danzas de Mexico y Guatemala" (J. Winzinger); "The Five Creations and Four Destructions of the Aztec World" (C. Simmons; R. Gaytan); "Art Forms of Quetzalcoatl: A Teaching Guide for Spanish, History, and Art Classes" (A. P. Crick); "The Art and Architecture of Mesoamerica: An Overview" (J. Quirarte); "Interpreting the Aztec Calendar" (L. Hall); "Mexican Muralism: Its Social-Educative Roles in Latin America and the United States" (S. Goldman); "Mexico: An Artist's History" (K. Jones); "A Historical Survey of Chicano Murals in the Southwest" (A. Rodriguez); and "El Dia de los Muertos" (C. Hickman). Section 2, The Musical Heritage of Latin America, has an introduction: "The Study of Latin American Folk Music and the Classroom" (G. Behague) and the following articles: "Value Clarification of the Chicano Culture through Music and Dance" (R. R. de Guerrero); "'La Bamba': Reflections of Many People" (J. Taylor); "The Latin American Art Music Tradition: Some Criteria for Selection of Teaching Materials" (M. Kuss); "Mariachi Guide" (B. San Miguel); "'El Tamborito': The Panamanian Musical Heritage" (N. Samuda); "A Journey through the History of Music in Latin America" (J. Orrego-Salas); "A Multicultural Tapestry for Young People" (V. Gachen); and "A Survey of Mexican Popular Music" (A. Krohn). A list of Education Service Centers in Texas is in the appendix. (DB)

Finalist for the PEN/Robert Bingham Fellowship for Writers It is the mid-1800s. Fela, taken from Africa, is working at her second sugar plantation in colonial Puerto Rico, where her mistress is only too happy to benefit from her impressive embroidery skills. But Fela has a secret. Before she and her husband were separated and sold into slavery, they performed a tribal ceremony in which they poured the essence of their unborn child into a very special stone. Fela keeps the stone with her, waiting for the chance to finish what she started. When the plantation owner approaches her, Fela sees a better opportunity for her child, and allows the man to act out his desire. Such is the beginning of a line of daughters connected by their intense love for one another, and the stories of a lost land. Mati, a powerful healer and noted craftswoman, is grounded in a life that is disappearing in a quickly changing world. Concha, unsure of her place, doesn't realize the price she will pay for rejecting her past. Elena, modern and educated, tries to navigate between two cultures, moving to the United States, where she will struggle to keep her family together. Carisa turns to the past for wisdom and strength when her life in New York falls apart. The stone becomes meaningful to each of the women, pulling them through times of crisis and ultimately connecting them to one another. Dahlma Llanos-Figueroa shows great skill and warmth in the telling of this heartbreaking, inspirational story about mothers and daughters, and the ways in which they hurt and save one another.

With informative biographies, essays, and "music maps, " this book is the ultimate guide to the best recordings in rhythm and blues. 20 charts.

A translation of La danse des salons (1847), this manual provides important information on mid-nineteenth-century ballroom dance. Following a format utilized by many manuals, the work begins with introductory comments on dance, followed by a description of the French quadrille. This is followed by discussion of round dances--the polka, numerous waltzes including waltze à trois temps, and waltze à deux temps--as well as steps and figures for another type of quadrille known as the mazurka quadrille. The manual contains eighty-three figures for a series of dance games, called the cotillon (also known as the German or German cotillon). The manual includes eight full-page prints by Paul Gavarni.

A groundbreaking and visionary call to action on educating and supporting girls of color, from the highly acclaimed author of Pushout, with a foreword by award-winning educational abolitionist Bettina Love Wise Black women have known for centuries that the blues have been a platform for truth-telling, an underground musical railroad to survival, and an essential form of resistance, healing, and learning. In this “powerful call to action” (Rethinking Schools), leading advocate Monique W. Morris invokes the spirit of the blues to articulate a radically healing and empowering pedagogy for Black and Brown girls. Morris describes with candor and love what it looks like to meet the complex needs of girls on the margins. Sing a Rhythm, Dance a Blues is a “vital, generous, and sensitively reasoned argument for how we might transform American schools to better educate Black and Brown girls” (San Francisco Chronicle). Morris brings together research and real life in this chorus of interviews, case studies, and the testimonies of remarkable people who work successfully with girls of color. The result is this radiant guide to moving away from punishment, trauma, and discrimination toward safety, justice, and genuine community in our schools.