The Diversity Book Club’s Spring Season
Curl up with the Spring Season picks of the St. James Diversity Book Club (formerly the Adventure Book Club). The Diversity Book Club is an outreach ministry of the St. James’ Racial Justice and Reconciliation Commission.

Group discussions will be held once a month in the St. James’ Toppie Bates Lakeside Room immediately following the 10:45 a.m. worship services. Light refreshments will be served. The books and dates for the Spring Season are listed below. There is no obligation to participate in both discussions. Join us when you can. Our goal is to enrich your reading experience through fellowship and sharing ideas—along with tasty treats.

March 17
Once I was You: A Memoir of Love and Hate in a Torn America (2020) by Maria Hinojosa

Pulitzer Prize winning journalist Maria Hinojosa ( https://www.latinousa.org/team/maria-hinojosa/ ) shares her experiences growing up Mexican American on the South Side of Chicago. Her story is juxtaposed against the stories of migrants seeking asylum in America today. “Hinojosa’s book is as much a manifesto as it is a memoir,” writes Fernando Santos in a New York Times book review on Sept. 15, 2020. “The narrative is chiseled by points of convergence between her own story and the history of immigration in this country.” (https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/15/books/review/maria-hinojosa-once-i-was-you.html)

From the publisher: “An urgent call to fellow Americans to open their eyes to the immigration crisis and understand that it affects us all, this honest and heartrending memoir paints a vivid portrait of how we got here and what it means to be a survivor, a feminist, a citizen, and a journalist who owns her voice while striving for the truth.”

Hinojosa will be the guest speaker for the Friends of Central Library Gifford Lecture Series on March 19, 2024 at the OnCenter Crouse Hinds Theater in Syracuse. Group ticket rates are available at $31 for a minimum of 10 tickets. The Diversity Book Club will facilitate the purchase of a block of seats if there is sufficient interest among St. James’ book club readers.