My family went out for dinner to celebrate the book’s release.
Month: January 2018
Book Press Release
Press Release
For Immediate Release
A new book about Latino Muslims
and their journeys to Islam!
San Antonio, TX – January 11, 2018 – What drives Latinos to embrace Islam?Juan Galvan attempts to answer this question with the upcoming release of Latino Muslims: Our Journeys to Islam on January 15, 2018. This collection of heartfelt stories, explores the struggles, discoveries, and revelations of Latinos before and after their conversion to Islam.
As a third generation, Mexican-American who converted to Islam in 2001, Juan Galvan certainly does not fit the Western stereotype of a Muslim. Following his conversion, he was asked by many why a Latino from the Texas Panhandle would embrace Islam. Challenged by his inability to readily answer this question, he embarked on a journey of self-reflection. This compilation of stories became his own personal search for answers. Juan is also the co-author of “Latino Muslims in the United States: Reversion, Politics, and Islamidad”, a 2017 report examining the identity of Latino Muslims in the United States based on the Latino Muslim Survey (LMS).
Prominent author of The Hadj: An American’s Pilgrimage to Mecca, Michael Wolfe, writes, “Here is a book that will fill your ears with a chorus of voices you may never have heard so clearly. What I love about this carefully introduced, large collection of testimonial essays is its variety, its unsettledness, its openness, its range….Our Journeys is a collection of actual, living human voices reveling in the beauty of discovery but also grappling with the stresses and strains of a decision that may easily confuse neighbors and even, perhaps especially, close relations.”
Latino Muslims: Our Journeys to Islam will be available at Amazon.com in paperback and digital versions and in hardcover at BarnesAndNoble.com. ISBN: 978-1530007349. Publisher: Self-published. Page Count: 243. Visit LatinoMuslims.net for additional book details or to download a high-resolution book cover image.
“After becoming a Muslim, (Juan) Galvan made it his personal
mission to inform the country about Latino Muslims.”
Hernán Rozemberg, San Antonio Express-News, 2005
About the editor
Juan Galvan lives in San Antonio, Texas, with his wife and three sons. Juan is a third-generation Mexican-American and the son of migrant workers. He is the third of eight children and spent his early years hoeing cotton in the rural Texas Panhandle. Juan encourages others to expand their views on the Latino and Muslim identity as he has learned through his own personal experiences.
To schedule an interview or to receive a review copy, please contact Juan Galvan at juan.galvan@latinomuslims.net.
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“The Beauty of Discovery” By Michael Wolfe
“Here is a book that will fill your ears with a chorus of voices you may never have heard so clearly. What I love about this carefully introduced, large collection of testimonial essays is its variety, its unsettledness, its openness, its range.
One the one hand, readers who know little about Islam and its history will be surprised by the very idea of Hispanic-rooted converts to Islam. They should get ready for some reminders: that Spanish is full of Arabic words, that the architectural resemblances between Mexico, say, and the Middle East are not accidental, that Spain, the social, cultural and intellectual pearl of medieval Europe, was full of Muslims from Mecca, Damascus, and Morocco for at least eight centuries, that large numbers of Roman Catholic and secular people now living in Spain and its far-flung New World ex-colonies may, if they like, trace their lines back to Muslim families of centuries ago— and that Jesus has always played an essential role in Islamic theology and Muslim life.
On the other hand, Muslims who know all these things may be surprised by Juan Galvan’s book too, because the voices here don’t pull punches or smooth over the problematic aspects of taking up a new religion by choice. Our Journeys is a collection of actual, living human voices reveling in the beauty of discovery but also grappling with the stresses and strains of a decision that may easily confuse neighbors and even, perhaps especially, close relations. Get ready for the sort of wild ride that only truth-tellers take you on. Sometimes religion can get in the way of truth-telling. Not in this case.”
Praise by Michael Wolfe, the author of “The Hadj: An American’s Pilgrimage to Mecca.”
In remembrance
