Datebook San Francisco Chronicle: 6 books dive into diversity to shine a fuller light on Hispanic heritage

by Tomas Moniz

National Hispanic Heritage Month is meant to be a wonderful opportunity to celebrate the rich history of Latine culture in all its permutations. However, I always feel slightly uneasy this month, anticipating the slew of snarky memes or the familial arguments about the definitions of Hispanic or Latinx or Latine (gender-neutral words I use interchangeably precisely because of the friction they might cause). On a more personal level, for mixed-race people like me, there’s the inevitable question: How Mexican are you? Which was why former President Donald Trump’s recent questioning of Kamala Harris’ mixed heritage rankled so many people, echoing the familiar need to justify or choose or explain who we are for other people.

In my novel “All Friends Are Necessary” (June 2024), I strove to create characters who could do what I struggled to do: accept all their complexity and contradictions, revel in the fluidity of identity. I imagined communities of friends and lovers who resisted the need to define each other in such static ways. That’s why I love art and art making: the power to imagine how things could be. So for this “Hispanic” Heritage Month, I’m looking forward to reading these works by fellow Latinx writers who will show us not the singular but the multiplicity of ways to celebrate and love ourselves in all our glorious and uncomfortable messiness.

read more here, and you'll spot my book!