New Central American Voices | Beyond Heroes and Holidays – A Busboys and Poets and Teaching for Change event
Date and Time
Sep 25, 2024 6:30 pm
Location
Brookland
625 Monroe St NE, Washington, District of Columbia, 20017
Sep 25, 2024 6:30 pm
Brookland
Central American authors Anna Lapera, Bessie Flores Zaldívar, and Diana Rojas will discuss their recent book releases. Teaching for Change board member Nancy Raquel Mirabal will emcee the discussion.
During Latinx Heritage Month, we often celebrate influential figures from the Southwest, South America, Mexico, and the Dominican Republic, like Sandra Cisneros, Gabriel García Márquez, Julia Alvarez, Frida Kahlo, César Chávez, and Dolores Huerta. But how often do we hear the names of Central American authors? Can you even name any?
That’s why we’re shining a light on these three brilliant authors, whose recent novels resonate with readers from middle school through adulthood.
This event is a powerful counter-narrative to the fear-mongering about immigration amplified in this election season. It is also a great way to prepare for Teach Central America Week (October 7–11).
Register Here: https://www.teachingforchange.org/new-central-american-voices
SPEAKERS
Anna Lapera is a Guatemalan American who teaches middle school in Montgomery County by day and writes stories about spunky kids stepping into their power in the early hours of the morning.
Author of Mani Semilla Finds Her Quetzal Voice. Manuela “Mani” Semilla wants two things: To get her period, and to thwart her mom’s plan of taking her to Guatemala on her thirteenth birthday. If her mom’s always going on about how dangerous it is in Guatemala, and how much she sacrificed to come to this country, then why should Mani even want to visit?
Bessie Flores Zaldívar (all pronouns) is a queer writer from Tegucigalpa, Honduras. They live in the New Haven area and are a fiction professor at Quinnipiac University. Libertad is Bessie’s debut publication.A queer YA coming-of-age set during the rigged Honduran presidential election, about a young poet discovering the courage it takes to speak her truth about the people and country she loves.
Diana Rojas is a journalist from Connecticut, New Jersey, and Costa Rica. She currently lives in “taxed and unrepresented” in Washington, DC. website
In the opening piece, “The Lives of Saints,” an immigrant family from Costa Rica regularly prays to a litany of saints to help deal with all that life throws their way–including alcoholism, marital discord, illness and death–all while adjusting to their new circumstances as “Americans.”Nancy Raquel Mirabal is Associate Professor of American Studies and the current Director of the U.S. Latina/o Studies (USLT) program at the University of Maryland, College Park. She is a historian who has published widely in the fields of Afro-diasporic, Latinx, gentrification, and spatial studies.
Her most recent publication is Suspect Freedoms: The Racial and Sexual Politics of Cubanidad in New York, 1823-1957 (NYU Press, 2017). Her next project examines the politics of archival spaces, dissonant discourses, and Latina/o spatial inquiry. Nancy has been a Teaching for Change board member since 2019.
The Beyond Heroes & Holidays Series is held once a month (generally on Wednesdays) from 6:30PM – 8:30PM at one of the Busboys and Poets locations. This series is designed for everyone who loves to learn. It offers the opportunity to engage with authors, scholars, people’s historians, films, and peers on social justice education and fugitive pedagogy. Educators can request professional development credit.
