Who are we?
To quote Abraham in the 1997 filmed based on the late Selena, "We have to be more Mexican than Mexicans and more American than the Americans, both at the same time! It's exhausting!"
This subscription box, Between Brown and Me is our dive into that idea and the reality of what is a very real and difficult lived experience to navigate.
The Midnight Oil is a Latino-owned bookstore and plays host to many book clubs from all genres of writing and walks of life.
This particular box is the manifestation of one of those such book clubs.
What does it mean to be Brown? Is there a benchmark to be labeled as such? If so, why, and who defines it?
We are the artists of our own painting that we call life.
Growth stems from conversations and confronting truths in our own reality. Our aim with this box is to talk about where our realities overlap and how can we embrace that beauty.
Yes, beauty. All shades, all backgrounds, all lived experiences. Brown is beautiful. You are beautiful. We are beautiful.
Join our quarterly book club and dive into the conversation with us. Each box will include a book of the quarter included with notes and prompts to ask yourself and anybody reading with you. We'll also be including various sorpresas which will change each box. You can expect things such as stickers, buttons, short stories, merch, nostalgic items and other things.
Each box costs $34.99 before shipping and tax. If you subscribe this will come out quarterly or pay ahead for one year and receive a discount.
Boxes will begin shipping out the first week of March/June/Sept/December.
This first box we'll be diving into Brown Enough by Christopher Rivas -
"At a time when disinformation, hate crimes, inequality, racial injustice, and white supremacy are on the rise, Brown Enough, part memoir and part social commentary, emerges, asking readers to proudly put their bodies, their identities, into the conversations of race. Brown Enough is a roller coaster of finding one's true self while simultaneously having a racial awakening amidst the struggle to be "perfectly" Latinx, woke, and as Brown as possible to make it in today's America."
We hope you join us in these discussions and conversations and look forward to growing in this space with you.
Join us in preserving and protecting our Brown joy. Life's a Risk Carnal, Turn Up Your Brownness!
-Between Brown and Me Team; Jesus Tijerina III, Manuel Tapia , Pablo Guzman