Product Description
Learn about Latino sexuality and how to help curb the spread of AIDS among young Latinos!

The Sexual Construction of Latino Youth: Implications for the Spread of HIV/AIDS is a comprehensive study of what young Latinos learn about sexuality and a detailed description of the latin sexual culture and its direct relation to HIV infection. This unique book discusses how the social construction of gender in Latin America contributes to sexual violence in countries such as Costa Rica, where violence is used as a means of controlling and asserting ownership over women's bodies by their fathers, brothers, and boyfriends. You will discover how this violence and control often leads women to develop post-traumatic stress disorder, a seemingly hopeless condition that makes them incapable of responding to a new crisis. The Sexual Construction of Latino Youth calls for the development of individual prevention programs that take into account the differences in sexual culture and the role of gender and class in producing such differences.

The Sexual Construction of Latino Youth contains shocking information on several Latin American countries such as Honduras, which has more than fifty percent of the Central American AIDS cases. Twenty percent of the people there living with AIDS are fifteen to twenty-four years old. Through your knowledge of the situation, you can work to prevent tragedy among young people in Latin American who are among the least informed group on HIV prevention and the most likely to engage in practices that place them at high risk of contracting HIV.

Through The Sexual Construction of Latino Youth, you will discover unique tips and suggestions for connecting with young people and developing a program to lower infection rates, such as:

• discovering how the Roman Catholic churches’position that a condom campaign to prevent HIV infection is immoral prevents young people from using condoms
• realizing that censorship by the media and public at large regarding premarital sex and AIDS- related topics is one of the key barriers to effective AIDS prevention strategies
• understanding that because sex education remains unavailable to the young people of Latin America, these countries will continue to experience unwanted pregnancies and HIV infection
• recognizing that in Latin America, fear, guilt, disgust, and shame are all used in an attempt to control a young persons’body and assure that all expressions of sexuality are directly related to procreation
• finding that young people in Latin America live at home until they are married, rely on their parents for gainful employment and are expected to live their lives for their families, not for themselves
  
  The Sexual Construction of Latino Youth discusses why traditional approaches to sex education in Latin America are ineffective and demonstrates what culturally-minded steps need to be taken to teach these youths how to protect themselves. The Sexual Construction of Latino Youth will help you make a difference and enable you to turn some of these tragic stories into successful and healthy lives.

Product Description
How one man challenged a law to license journalists in Costa Rica. In 1980, Stephen B. Schmidt, a New Yorker practicing journalism without a license in Costa Rica, challenged the national professional association of journalists to enforce their licensing law, which inevitably restricts the content of the news media. It accepted that challenge, Schmidt was prosecuted, and in a case that went to the Costa Rican Supreme Court, was given a three-month suspended sentence. The case then came before the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, an arm of the OAS, which voted 5 to 1 to support the Costa Rican court's decision. This book contains the full text of the one dissenting brief presented before the commission, filed by the U.S. representative, R. Bruce McColm. ... Read more

Product Description
The thirteen original essays in this collection evaluate the role of elections in the development of democracy in the nations of Central America: Costa Rica, Honduras, El Salvador, Guatemala, Nicaragua, and Panama. Exploring the region's transformation over the last fifteen years from dictatorial to electoral rule, this volume of new essays is a major expansion and reworking of Elections and Democracy in Central America, published by the UNC Press in 1989.

The essays reevaluate the status of democratization in each country over the last six years, including the transition to civilian rule in Panama. In addition to the country-by-country analysis, the book includes topical chapters on comparative voting behavior, the impact of outside election observers, and the roles of foreign actors and elites in the election process. Although the contributors express skepticism about the prospects for some countries to consolidate democracy, they are, on the whole, optimistic about Central America's democratic future. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Comments by one of the contributors.
A comprehensive reference on the sourcing, cultural context, and ideological significance of jade in the world of the ancient Maya and other Precolumbian peoples of Central America.This is a "must have" for anyone interested in the topic.It is destined to become a classic source on archaeological jade. ... Read more

Product Description

Book Review

Many people merely dream of traveling around the world. This highly unusual man acts on his dreams. Every time he starts to wonder about an interesting place he has not been, he simply packs his bags, grabs a camera and goes to the airport to claim his seat. Soon he is in Brazil, China, Africa or anywhere there are people to meet, things to see and do, like taking pictures, buying art, shaking hands, asking questions and being entertained by professional guides and story tellers. "Hello, how are you, good to meet you. I'm Leon Freeman from Memphis, Tennessee." I found his introduction by a tribesman in Papua New Guinea as a cousin the most striking story of them all.

Mr. Freeman retired from his school teaching career and immediately set out to explore the world. Over the years he visited five continents, sixty-two countries and a string of islands ringing the globe like pearls. He discovered one satisfying fundamental fact: in human essence, we are all one. Whatever differences there might be in our outer physical appearance or our diverse cultural extensions, there are no qualitative differences to the principle: 'all human babies are created equal.'

In this picture book, Mr. Freeman provides the viewer with unforgettable, vicarious experiences to enjoy time and time again for many years to come.

- Maia Jaribu Ajanaku, SMU - Retired Teacher, Entrepreneur ... Read more

Product Description

Easy lessons that help you speak Spanish like a native

This revised edition of Streetwise Spanish features anoverview of the “signature” words that differentiate speakers across the Spanish-speaking world. It also includes an audio CD featuring 30 dialogs from the book, spoken by native speakers from more than 15 countries and exercises that test your grasp of key slang expressions.

Customer Reviews (16)

Very helpful for learning conversational Spanish! Not for beginners
If you want to improve your conversational skills and learn different slang words and idiomatic expressions in Spanish, this is definitely the book for you.

This book (along with the accompanying CD) has helped me tremendously. I speak Spanish daily to people from several different countries: mainly Mexico, Guatemala, Puerto Rico, the Dominican Republic, Colombia, and some people (like myself) who speak Spanish as their second or third language. Sometimes it is confusing because of the different dialects, word choices, etc. When I'm studying Spanish on my own I can't just concentrate on one country or region.

I liked that they included dialogues between Central American and Caribbean speakers as well as the "big" ones (Mexico, Argentina, Spain). The dialogues in Venezuela, Colombia, and Uruguay were really interesting too.

My only wish is that they had included a dialogue between speakers in the Dominican Republic because I still have a lot of trouble understanding their type of Spanish. Of course I know that, because it is so difficult and different from "standard" Spanish, that's probably why it was left out.

The best part, though, is that the book was actually helpful and interesting. Who would have known that so many slang words in Spanish come from food? Or how one word can be totally acceptable in one region and be a vulgarity in another?

If you are just starting Spanish, hold off on buying this book. I don't know why anyone would include this on a Spanish 101 list. Because the dialogues in this book step away from the standard grammar, you should have already have a good grasp of the language so that you can notice the differences.

Once you advance in your studies, though, definitely buy this book!

Review of Streetwise Spanish by James
This is James from James Spanish (the learning Spanish blog).
Most Spanish language courses focus on `proper' Spanish, relying on correct grammar rules and dictionary definitions to guide students on how to use the language to the highest standard.

However, when you listen to a native Spanish speaker you will rarely hear them talk like the people on your audio examples.They may talk faster and shorten words or miss some out altogether.Perhaps they use phrases that you can't find in your textbooks, and seem to use words in a strange context.This kind of every day use of language is known as `colloquial', and while it may not obey the correct rules, you might find that it is more useful to learn how people actually speak than how they are supposed to.

Most native speakers use colloquialisms,for example in English we shorten `do not' to `don't' and rather than saying `gasoline' we shorten it to `gas'.While these seem like obvious examples to a native English speaker, would similar differences in Spanish be obvious to you?

This is the beauty of Streetwise Spanish: Speak and Understand Colloquial Spanish.

The book covers common colloquial or slang terms, with exercises, vocabulary lists and examples to help you remember things.

Another useful feature of this book is that it differentiates between some of the most common differences in the various dialects of Spanish spoken around the world.From Mexico to Cuba to Spain, each country has its own peculiarities of how it speaks Spanish. This book reveals these, helping you to get a better grasp of the style of Spanish that you want to speak and understand.

As well as geographical differences in the language, the book also gives examples that might be used in a variety of social situations, from teenagers to business people.This is valuable for helping you to fit in with your peers when you are traveling or working in another country.What might seem professional to one person may seem old fashioned to another.Studying this book will help you to make the right impression.

As you might expect from a book that teaches unconventional Spanish, the text also includes plenty of light hearted stories, anecdotes and cartoons to help you get a real feel for the flavor of each Spanish speaking region.From folk art to chat up lines to jokes, all kinds of Spanish are covered.

Speak Spanish with confidence no matter where you are and never worry about your words having a second hidden meaning.

In closing my review of this product, I'd like to share with you the three Amazon products that I have found most helpful in my pursuit to learn Spanish. If you are truly serious about achieving fluency, I'd recommend getting all 3 of them if you can afford it.

1.Lights, Camera, Spanish (Book + DVD): Learn Conversational Spanish by Watching a Romantic Adventure This isactually a 90 minute movie for Spanish-language learners. It gives the option to watch the movie with subtitles but I'd recommend not using them to improve your Spanish. This "movie" also includes a workbook so that you can reinforce the Spanish vocabulary words and phrases from the film.The workbook also has lots of exercises to keep you engaged in the film. But be prepared to hear Chilean accents. Although pleasent to the ear, the accents from Chile are very different from most Latin American accents.

2. Verbarrator Version 1.1 (Windows Version) This software replaces the traditional verb conjugation books and makes learning how to conjugate Spanish verbs an interactive and fun activity. This should be a required resource for anyone who wants to improve their ability to conjugate Spanish verbs. Especially anyone who is challenged by the drudgery of learning how to conjugate Spanish verbs and who is looking for a new way to make learning how to conjugate Spanish verbs an easy and fun activity

3. Diccionario esencial de la lengua espanola de la Real Academia Espanola (Spanish Edition) If you are really serious about speaking the language fluently, then at some point you will need to replace your Spanish-English dictionary and get a pure Spanish dictionary with both the vocabulary words and the definitionsentirely in Spanish. I use this one only because it was highly-recommended by a friend from Spain who teaches Spanish.

Streets throughout the Spanish-speaking world
This book will give you a taste of the vernacular used in a wide variety of places in the Spanish speaking world. This is both the strength of the book and, if you're only interested in learning about one particular piece of the Spanish speaking world, say just Spain or just Mexico, a drawback.

The idioms presented are useful and current. This isn't a text book or a grammar book about usage. Rather, its a sampling of how Spanish is actually spoken by regular people.

I highly recommend it and its companion book, Red Hot Spanish Slang and Idioms, by the same authors.

Warning CD exercises do not follow book at all!
When someone "borrowed" my 1st edition, I was glad to be able to get an Audio CD with this second edition. But, the CD chapter exercises do not follow book exercises.The familiar exercises at the end of chapters is a nice touch, but I was disappointed that CD doesn't match up with these. The book itself is a good taste of Spanish slang from around the world. The book is especially good for the learner who has become bored with the usual textbook vocabulary from beginner's Spanish.

Not helpful
Only slighlty useful. The CD is of no use at all for learning - it has too little information about too few places.It would have been better to teach U.S. urban terms instead of jumping from country to country giving single phrases.

A waste of money. ... Read more