Chica Why Not

Winner of the 2022 International Latino Book Awards, Best Spiritual/New Age Book Written by a Latina who's lived it, this book is an invitation to overcome your familial and cultural expectations, fears, and limiting beliefs, while remaining true to yourself and your roots! For those who feel stuck in life, who don't see a way forward, who don't believe they deserve to claim their dreams, Sandra Hinojosa Ludwig has one question: Chica, Why Not? With this book, you will find all the tools you need to accept that the life of your dreams is not only within reach, it is your right. Sandra grew up in Mexico, where she experienced violence, frustration, and sadness as everyday settings. After unsuccessfully chasing happiness in a corporate career, she found deeper meaning in spirituality and now helps others to realize their dreams while still being true to themselves and their roots. In this book, she guides you through her six-step program for manifesting the life you want, addressing career, family, love, wealth, and health. She gently breaks down the most common fears and excuses people make that hold them back, inviting you to practice self-compassion as you overcome your own fears and limiting beliefs as well as outside pressures-including familial and cultural expectations familiar to some in the Latino community.

In her father’s Peruvian family, Marie Arana was taught to be a proper lady, yet in her mother’s American family she learned to shoot a gun, break a horse, and snap a chicken’s neck for dinner. Arana shuttled easily between these deeply separate cultures for years. But only when she immigrated with her family to the United States did she come to understand that she was a hybrid American whose cultural identity was split in half. Coming to terms with this split is at the heart of this graceful, beautifully realized portrait of a child who “was a north-south collision, a New World fusion. An American Chica.” Here are two vastly different landscapes: Peru—earthquake-prone, charged with ghosts of history and mythology—and the sprawling prairie lands of Wyoming. In these rich terrains resides a colorful cast of family members who bring Arana’s historia to life...her proud grandfather who one day simply stopped coming down the stairs; her dazzling grandmother, “clicking through the house as if she were making her way onstage.” But most important are Arana’s parents: he a brilliant engineer, she a gifted musician. For more than half a century these two passionate, strong-willed people struggled to overcome the bicultural tensions in their marriage and, finally, to prevail.

Fed up with the "more, more, more" mentality of North America, Jen and her husband Greg make the unusual choice of quitting their jobs in their early 40's, selling everything, and moving to Costa Rica with just 9 suitcases. Find out what made them consider this in the first place, how they did it, and why they have no regrets! Bonus chapters include Jen's special recipe for making bite-sized éclairs and a packing list for YOUR move to Costa Rica!

Revel in the enduring legacy of Mexican artist Frida Kahlo—from the self-portraits, to the flower crown, to her iconic eyebrows—with this fun and commemorative book! With her colorful style, dramatic self-portraits, hardscrabble backstory, and verve for life, Frida Kahlo remains a modern icon, captivating and inspiring artists, feminists, and art lovers more than sixty years after her death. Forever Frida celebrates all things Frida, so you can enjoy her art, her words, her style, and her badass attitude every day. Viva Frida!

Rei Kiriyama is a child prodigy. Rei Kiriyama is also an orphan who lives alone in an empty apartment. Rei Kiriyama is a teen working in an adult's world. Life is complicated for Rei. He's an up-and-coming shogi (Japanese chess) player on the verge of turning pro but he has no homelife or much of a life period outside his board game but thankfully with the help of some life-long friends he has an opportunity start all over again.

Nea, a Chinese Cambodian teenager, has survived the Khmer Rouge only to land in poverty in Texas. Her small family struggles to get by when a miracle occurs. Wealthy and mysterious, Auntie and Uncle write to say they are alive and well, running a Chinese restaurant in Nebraska. As Nea helps pack Hefty bags with meager belongings for a journey into the American Midwest, little does she know their miracle has a dark side. Soon family secrets, small town resentments, lies born of wartime and a forbidden love threaten to tear them apart forever. In the tradition of Holden Caulfield and Scout Finch, Nea must fight to save her family...and herself.