This week is Banned Books Week (September 26−October 3, 2009). From the American Library Association:

Banned Books Week (BBW) is an annual event celebrating the freedom to read and the importance of the First Amendment. Held during the last week of September, Banned Books Week highlights the benefits of free and open access to information while drawing attention to the harms of censorship by spotlighting actual or attempted bannings of books across the United States.

And since the United States has such a love/hate relationship with Latinos/immigrants, I decided to look at the banned/challenged books written by Latino/Latin-Americans, or with Latin American themes in the last year (2008-2009).

Published in 1972,” Bless Me, Ultima” , a novel by Rudolfo Anaya, was banned from high school English classes in a school in California after it was deemed anti-Catholic and profane. I’m ashamed to admit that this is one of those books that I have been meaning to read since forever and never have.

I wrote about “Vamos a Cuba” back in 2006 when it first created controversy and apparently it hasn’t stopped. After the book was pulled from all Miami-Dade schools because it depicts an “inaccurate” version of life in Cuba, The ACLU filed a lawsuit and won an injunction allowing the book to remain on shelves (and all the books in the series). The injunction was overturned earlier this year when an appeals court found that the first amendment hadn’t been violated.