Sobre Enero: Resources on Latin@ Civil Rights, Social Justice, and Youth Activism

Feliz año nuevo a tod@s.

We’re glad to be back after a rejuvenating winter break and excited to engage in new conversations with you! We begin the year by focusing on issues of civil rights and social justice that are meaningful to people everywhere, but particularly relevant to Latin@ and Latin American communities. This month we focus not only on how to teach young people about injustices, but more importantly offer ideas for how they can take a stand against it. In the next few weeks we’ll discuss how children and youth can push back against prejudice and discrimination in their lives and in broader society.

Our dedicated bloggers will tackle the question in a few ways:

Alice, our children’s book reviewer, will focus on books that profile child activists who face and combat issues such as poverty and immigration rights
Katrina, our En la Clase expert, will look at Latin@ children’s literature and how it can be used to teach about civil rights and to encourage student activism
Charla, our WWW researcher, will share resources related to art through activism and children as activists.

In addition, our featured book for January, Shadowshaper, addresses themes of injustice. In it, young adult readers will find a powerful protagonist who demonstrates how to fight for one’s self, family, and community even in the face of opposition.

The ideas we offer here are but a small part of a much larger conversation happening across the country. There are some organizations doing phenomenal work in this area and we highly recommend their resources. If you haven’t already, take a (long) moment to become acquainted with them:

Join us in the conversation. What sorts of resources and strategies do you use to highlight civil rights and social justice issues? Are there other organizations you turn to for ideas in how to engage with this difficult topic? How do you encourage your students to stand up and be agents for change in their lives and within their communities?

Pa’ lante,
Keira

The above image was modified from a vector designed by Freepik.