El Otro Lado: The Border in Children’s Literature
Title and/or Affiliation
Lourdes Marquez, Hollins University
Presenter Bio
Lourdes Marquez earned her B.A. in English from Texas A&M International University, where she discovered her love for Children’s and Young Adult Literature after taking a Multicultural Children’s Literature course. She is a high school English teacher in a school where most of her students cross literal and metaphorical borders daily. In 2023, her co-authored article, “Haciendo Espejos: Multicultural Children’s Literature as Mirror Making,” was published in the Journal of Latinos and Education. Lourdes is currently pursuing her Master's at Hollins University.
Session
Panel: Border Crossing
Location
Zoom
Start Date
29-6-2024 2:45 PM
End Date
29-6-2024 4:00 PM
Abstract
Borders are a pervasive motif in Latinx children’s literature. Recent studies have called to examine how multicultural children’s literature prompts political and educational discourse. This paper analyzes Latinx picture books to dissect how border crossing prompts an early maturity for child protagonists, focusing on the physical and metaphorical borders in The Notebook Keeper, Until Someone Listens, and My Two Border Towns. Marquez argues that Latinx authors often utilize the border as a metaphor for a premature transition away from childhood by highlighting the transnationality of the characters to challenge the perception that border crossing is a one-way journey to assimilation.
El Otro Lado: The Border in Children’s Literature
Zoom
Borders are a pervasive motif in Latinx children’s literature. Recent studies have called to examine how multicultural children’s literature prompts political and educational discourse. This paper analyzes Latinx picture books to dissect how border crossing prompts an early maturity for child protagonists, focusing on the physical and metaphorical borders in The Notebook Keeper, Until Someone Listens, and My Two Border Towns. Marquez argues that Latinx authors often utilize the border as a metaphor for a premature transition away from childhood by highlighting the transnationality of the characters to challenge the perception that border crossing is a one-way journey to assimilation.