10 Must-Read Books by Latino Authors

Posted by: Maryanne Piña

These powerful books by Latino authors offer transformative insights into leadership, perseverance, and personal growth, making them must-reads for anyone looking to inspire and elevate themselves in both their personal and professional lives. Whether you’re drawn to stories of overcoming adversity, navigating cultural dynamics, or striving for business success, these works highlight themes of leadership, resilience, and the diverse experiences within the Latino community. As we conclude Hispanic Heritage Month, it’s the perfect time to explore these impactful reads:

The gift of struggle: Life Changing lessons by Bobby Herrera

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Every leader has stories about the challenges they have faced and struggles they have overcome. In the moment, those situations require strength, patience, perseverance and courage. With time, those struggles provide us lessons for how to be better leaders. Bobby Herrera learned to see those struggles as gifts.

As the co-founder and CEO of Populus Group, Bobby never imagined the challenges of building a $500 million organization that serves tens of thousands of people. Throughout his life, he experienced the divergence between the intentional leader he wanted to be, and the less engaged version of him that showed up at the office every day. One day at a company meeting, he decided to share a story about one of his first struggles as a young adult. That story, a pivotal experience that had transformed Bobby’s life, inspired his employees with its radical transparency, humility and the idealism of Bobby’s dreams for the company.

In The Gift of Struggle, Bobby shares twelve of those stories from his leadership journey. Each chapter shares the details of the story, the broader lesson any leader can apply, a set of questions to reflect on, and an afterword for how the story later unfolded in Bobby’s life. Building on Bobby’s efforts, this book inspires readers to find their own stories, share their gifts of struggle with others, and become the leader they imagine they can be.

The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho

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Combining magic, mysticism, wisdom and wonder into an inspiring tale of self-discovery, The Alchemist has become a modern classic, selling millions of copies around the world and transforming the lives of countless readers across generations.

Paulo Coelho’s masterpiece tells the mystical story of Santiago, an Andalusian shepherd boy who yearns to travel in search of a worldly treasure. His quest will lead him to riches far different—and far more satisfying—than he ever imagined. Santiago’s journey teaches us about the essential wisdom of listening to our hearts, of recognizing opportunity and learning to read the omens strewn along life’s path, and, most importantly, to follow our dreams.

Latinx business success by Frank C. & Jose M.

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Latinx Business Success delivers a powerful and inspiring message of Latinx leadership. Via interviews with many of the most accomplished Latin business leaders in the United States, authors Frank Carbajal and José Morey offer readers a full picture of what it takes to succeed in modern leadership and how to close the digital divide that keeps Latinx people underrepresented in positions of authority.

The book explores the authors’ DIGITAL framework―which includes the principles of Decision, Intelligence, Game Plan, Insight, Technology, Abundance, and Leverage―and explains how each element of the system contributes to leadership success for current and aspiring Latinx leaders.

Networking Excellence by David Olivencia

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In NetWORKing Excellence: Building a Strong Value-Based Network in an Accelerating Digital World, author David Olivencia shares the approach to networking that has enabled him to climb the corporate ladder at some of the world’s leading companies. Learn how he co-founded and scaled multiple technology leadership organizations, invested in and supported unicorn startups, got invited to the Whitehouse across 3 Presidential administrations, and earned countless other awards and accolades. David leverages years of experience, pulls from hundreds of books, and interviews the leaders who have built today’s successful networks.

These experiences around networking are synthesized into a methodology which David details in the book, covering components like:

• The importance of a foundation and all the vital components needed for networking excellence
• Execution and WORK, identifying and helping the right people and networks to be successful
• Optimizing your networks with tools and tips for networking events and social media

Crossing Borders: Personal Essays

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“On good days I feel I am a bridge. On bad days I just feel alone,” Sergio Troncoso writes in this riveting collection of sixteen personal essays in which he seeks to connect the humanity of his Mexican family to those he meets on the East Coast, including his wife’s Jewish kin. Raised in a home steps from the Mexican border in El Paso, Texas, Troncoso crossed what seemed an even more imposing border when he left home to attend Harvard College.

Initially, “outsider status” was thrust upon him; later, he adopted it willingly, writing about the Southwest and Chicanos in an effort to communicate who he was and where he came from to those unfamiliar with his childhood world. He wrote to maintain his ties to his parents and his abuelita, and to fight against the elitism he experienced in the Ivy League. “I was torn,” he writes, “between the people I loved at home and the ideas I devoured away from home.”

Cultura & Cash by Giovanna Gonzalez

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Cultura and Cash is a practical and jargon-free money guide to help you tackle your finances as a First Gen Latina. In this valuable book, The First Gen Mentor, Giovanna “Gigi” González, uncovers cultural and systemic barriers First Gen face in their financial journey and provides actionable solutions on how to overcome them. Through storytelling and real-life examples, she’ll go into depth and explain best practices for creating a solid financial foundation through emergency funds, credit building, budgeting, debt payoff, and investing.

This book will improve your money mindset and give you the information you need to create financial success on your terms with family in mind. You will learn how to balance family expectations while prioritizing your own financial wellness and that money does not control you and limit you. Instead, it’s a powerful self-care tool you use to your advantage to support you and those you care about. Read this book and you will be empowered to take action and start designing a life you love.

Autentico by Dr. Robert Rodriguez , Andrés Tapia

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Latinos and Latinas will account for a third of our workforce by 2050—yet they make up only 5 percent of senior roles in corporate America.Dr. Robert Rodriguez and Andrés T. Tapia call this low percentage of Latino and Latina corporate executives today the “5 percent Shame.”

Inspired by Price M. Cobbs’s seminal work on the secrets of successful Black leaders, this book seeks to understand the impact on Latinos and Latinas of the external forces of conscious and unconscious biases and of the internal forces of whether to assimilate or double down on their cultural identities in their quest to get ahead.

The second edition features a new foreword by Henry Cisneros, former secretary of the Department of Housing and Urban Development, as well as updated statistics and graphs to represent how America’s career landscape for Latinos has and has not changed and how to ensure Latinos can rise to their fullest potential.

Using insights from in-depth interviews with twenty highly successful boomer Latino and Latina executives and focus groups with dozens of Gen X and millennial leaders, the authors have captured lessons about how these individuals chose their career paths, addressed challenges, and seized opportunities. The discussions are interpreted through the lenses of the authors’ different personal experiences as Latino leaders in corporate America and synthesized as a guide for future leaders.

Differences that make a difference by Jorge Titinger, Pedro David Espinoza, Pat Gelsinger

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Premise: How inclusion has been proven to have direct, measurable effects on stability and success in businesses, both publicly traded and privately held, including but not limited to the technology industry. Differences That Make a Difference focuses on the power of diversity, innovation, and disruption, by narrating anecdotes and research from Fortune 500 CEOs, public service leaders, and academics. Pedro David Espinoza Jorge Titinger interviewed more than 100 leaders on 4 continents to share how companies and entrepreneurs can take tangible steps to create a culture of belonging, prepare for the future of work, and retain the world’s best talent.
Structure: Statistical research to support the premise, as well as relational information provided by interviews with business and public policy leaders known as contributors.

Latino leadership playbook by Refugio A. Atilano

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Are you an aspiring Latino leader ready to take on that next transformative role that will jump start your career? Or a seasoned professional ready for a catalyst in your profession?

The Latino Leadership Playbook (LLP) is a game-changing leadership accelerator tool – the first of its kind – that will provide the Latino community with proven, targeted and practical business leadership strategies that will shift the corporate Latino Leadership landscape now and for generations to come.

The purpose of The Latino Leadership Playbook (LLP) is to develop an informed, confident, high-impact, promotion-ready Latino talent pipeline to directly address the current 4% representation gap in corporate senior leadership roles. Following the new Latino Leadership Success Model, developed by author Refugio Atilano, accompanied by insights and guidance by top Latino and non-Latino industry leaders, the LLP will guide any Latino leader looking to immediately improve and transform their impact in the workplace

Undocumented: A Dominican boy’s odyssey from homeless shelter to ivy league by Dan-el Padilla

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Dan-el Padilla Peralta has lived the American dream. As a boy he came here legally with his family. Together they left Santo Domingo behind, but life in New York City was harder than they imagined. Their visas lapsed, and Dan-el’s father returned home. But Dan-el’s courageous mother was determined to make a better life for her bright sons. Without papers she faced tremendous obstacles. While Dan-el was only in grade school, the family joined the ranks of the city’s homeless. Dan-el, his mother, and his brother lived in a downtown shelter, where Dan-el’s only refuge was the meager library. There he met Jeff, a young volunteer from a wealthy family. Jeff was immediately struck by Dan-el’s passion for books and learning. With Jeff’s help, Dan-el was accepted, on scholarship, to Collegiate, the oldest private school in the country. There Dan-el thrived. Throughout his youth Dan-el navigated these two worlds: the rough streets of East Harlem, where he lived with his brother and his mother and tried to make friends, and the ultra-elite halls of a Manhattan private school, where he could immerse himself in a world of books and where he soon rose to the top of his class. From Collegiate Dan-el went to Princeton, where he thrived and where he made the momentous decision to come out as an undocumented student in a Wall Street Journal profile a few months before he gave the salutatorian’s traditional address, in Latin, at his commencement. Undocumented is a classic story of the triumph of the human spirit. It also is the perfect cri de coeur for the debate on comprehensive immigration reform.

Take this moment to continue your journey of growth and empowerment, both personally and professionally. The stories and wisdom within these pages are just the beginning of what we can achieve together.