Kelly Lytle Hernández & Michael Zapata

This program is presented by the Chicago Humanities Festival. Kelly Lytle Hernández will be in conversation with Michael Zapata about her book Bad Mexicans: Race, Empire, and Revolution in the Borderlands.

Pre-signed books will be available for purchase.

About Bad Mexicans: Race, Empire, and Revolution in the Borderlands:

“Rebel historian” Kelly Lytle Hernández fills in one of the largest gaps in our history textbooks: the 1910 Mexican Revolution, which remade both Mexico and the United States. Hernández takes us back to the frontlines of the magonistas, a group of agitators who challenged Mexican dictator Porfirio Diaz. Hernández’s book Bad Mexicans uncovers the often overlooked story of a revolution that triggered a demographic sea change in the Mexican-American population, threatened to undo the rise of Anglo-American power, and forever changed our political landscape. Hernández is joined in conversation by Michael Zapata, founding editor of MAKE Literary Magazine and the author of The Lost Book of Adana Moreau.

About the speakers:

Kelly Lytle Hernández holds the Thomas E. Lifka Endowed Chair in History and directs the Ralph J. Bunche Center for African American Studies at UCLA. A 2019 MacArthur “Genius” Grant recipient, she is the author of the award-winning books Migra! and City of Inmates. She lives in Los Angeles, California.

Michael Zapata is a founding editor of MAKE Literary Magazine and the author of the novel The Lost Book of Adana Moreau, winner of the 2020 Chicago Review of Books Award for Fiction, finalist for the 2020 Heartland Booksellers Award in Fiction, and a Best Book of the Year for NPR, A.V. Club, Los Angeles Public Library, and BookPage, among others. He’s on the core faculty of StoryStudio Chicago and the MFA faculty of Northwestern University. As a public-school educator, he taught literature and writing in high schools servicing drop out students. He currently lives in Chicago with his family.