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

Héctor Tobar

May 2023 · Macmillan Audio · Narrated by André Santana

About this audiobook

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.

Ratings and reviews

Tobar decodes the meaning and history of "Latino" identity. Beautifully weaving the stories of his own life as a son to Guataemalan parents and the essays of his students Tobar dissects the intersections of "Latino" identity and it's depictions in media and pop culture. As well as the tense relationship and history of the United States and Latin America. The book doesn't hold back in it's assessments and would most likely resonate with those who come from immigrant backgrounds of Latin America.

About the author

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 Last Great Road Bum, The Barbarian Nurseries, Translation Nation, and The Tattooed Soldier. He is also a contributing writer for the New York Times opinion pages and an associate professor at the University of California, Irvine. He has 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, Tobar is a native of Los Angeles, where he lives with his family.