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Sometimes called “The Region,” the northwest corner of Indiana is its own place, holding special meaning for our state’s ethnic history, labor history, religious history, and women’s history.

For example, Lake County has the highest percentage of Latinos in the state, roughly 14%. This ethnic community dates back to 1919 when U.S. Steel in Gary and Inland Steel in East Chicago imported Mexican laborers to help break the Great Steel Strike of 1919 (as told by Edward J. Escobar in Forging a Community: The Latino Experience in Northwest Indiana). Women workers from the city contributed to the steel industry during WWII; their Rosie the Riveter was Mela, Queen of the 12-Inch (Bar Mill). East Chicago remains a strong Hispanic center, with its historic Our Lady of Guadalupe parish.

Meandering Indiana - 9 « Hoosierati

Here in Montana, and across the Rocky Mountain West, the election of Barack Obama represents the startling culmination of social, cultural and political changes that have been underway in this region for many years. You’ve heard a lot of this by now: the Mountain West, increasingly populated by amenity-seeking coastal migrants and Latino immigrants, and with an independent-minded electorate that’s resistant to Republican over-reaching on social issues, is no longer solid red, but rather “in play.”

The New President and the New West | Politics | New West Network

Like Hijuelos’ best-known novel, “The Mambo Kings Play Songs of Love” (1990), “Dark Dude” is about a Cuban living in New York City, only the protagonist is second generation and a teenager. He is also uncharacteristically fair-skinned — a “dark dude.” According to the definition that kicks off this book for readers ages 12 and up, that’s what “a male of light skin is derisively called by persons of color.”

That description most certainly applies to Rico, a 15-year-old Cuban American with blond hair, hazel eyes and freckles. The New York City teen is often jumped by hoods who think he’s white and, therefore, has money. But he doesn’t. His “Pops” works two jobs to keep the four-person family afloat, and they’re still scraping to get by because Pops likes to drink away his paychecks.

‘Dark Dude’ by Oscar Hijuelos - Los Angeles Times