Side By Side by Marilisa Jiménez Garcia

This is really cool to see! The cover of this new book features an illustration I created for a series of "story time" posters I started two years ago. I made these images because I wanted to contribute some reflections to reading rooms and areas in libraries. I've seen images of celebrities in "Read" posters but I wanted the images to be of every day people and children. 

Scholar Marilisa Jiménez Garcia studies Latinx history and children's literature and has written this book "Side By Side" about the ongoing colonization of Puerto Rico and how media from the US has affected Latinx kids on the island. You can order a copy of the book HERE

2023 Update: The book won an award!!! Amazing!

Heres the description from the book:

During the early colonial encounter, children’s books were among the first kinds of literature produced by US writers introducing the new colony, its people, and the US’s role as a twentieth-century colonial power to the public. Subsequently, youth literature and media were important tools of Puerto Rican cultural and educational elite institutions and Puerto Rican revolutionary thought as a means of negotiating US assimilation and upholding a strong Latin American, Caribbean national stance.

In Side by Side: US Empire, Puerto Rico, and the Roots of American Youth Literature and Culture, author Marilisa Jiménez García focuses on the contributions of the Puerto Rican community to American youth, approaching Latinx literature as a transnational space that provides a critical lens for examining the lingering consequences of US and Spanish colonialism for US communities of color. Through analysis of such texts typically outside traditional Latinx or literary studies as young adult literature, textbooks, television programming, comics, music, curriculum, and youth movements, Side by Side represents the only comprehensive study of the contributions of Puerto Ricans to American youth literature and culture, as well as the only comprehensive study into the role of youth literature and culture in Puerto Rican literature and thought.

Considering recent debates over diversity in children’s and young adult literature and media and the strained relationship between Puerto Rico and the US, Jiménez García's timely work encourages us to question who constitutes the expert and to resist the homogenization of Latinxs, as well as other marginalized communities, that has led to the erasure of writers, scholars, and artists.

Also, check out this other book edited by Marilisa about Puerto Rico.

If you'd like a print of the original illustration, cop one here.

 

Africana Studies Print

 

Peace, I'm so excited to introduce this new piece to you "Africana Studies". This is a print featuring that phrase and an antique afro pick. The origin of the idea comes from Black, African American, African studies departments in colleges. I hope this print can apply to high schools one day as well, but this is basically an attempt to make a beautiful and affirming decoration for an office, classroom, or building that specializes in the study of Black culture. It could totally be in a home or bedroom but my aim is to reach educators specifically with this whether they be in a larger "Ethnic Studies" department or a sole focus of study at their institution.

COP one here!

Series: This print will be a part of a series of new prints focusing on Black, Asian, Raza, Indigenous studies or programs from an Ethnic Studies program. Stay tuned.

Did you see the "Ethnic Studies" print pack w/ stickers?

Black Owned Etsy Shops Virtual -Nov 27-28th

 

Hey Family, if you are holiday shopping please consider supporting a Black Owned Business online. I'm happy to be amongst this year's new Etsy team "Black Owned Etsy Shops"!!! Wanna see what we got? Peep this look book LINK

You can check out our IG here and the curated list of Black Owned Etsy shops here. Happy holidays!

Lovecraft Country-Season 1

 

If you have not yet seen this show, I HIGHLY recommend it. Check out the trailer, then listen to the podcast because after each episode they dive deep into each episode with thoughts, anecdotes, and opinions that greatly expand the show. And then, watch the behind the scenes after you've finished the show. It is worth it.

Black Is Beautiful Sticker

 

Juiced to share this with you all. A gold foil "Black Is Beautiful" Sticker!!  Cop one!

LINK

Here's a new sticker with a classic phrase "Black is Beautiful" first uttered before my mother was born in an effort to give African Americans pride. Not only in their skin color, but their heritage. The term "Black" is one of many used to describe humans with a darker skin hue but the descendants of Africans in the US did not create the classifications for race, we just flipped them and gave them new meanings.

For me personally, I started to use this phrase publicly as part of a series of drawings and paintings celebrating unsung figures of Black history here in the US and abroad. I love the feeling of affirmation the term gives and hope you too can resonate with it whether you consider yourself "Black" or not. We can all affirm the "Black Is Beautiful" as a statement of pride and a resistance to centuries of "anti-black" imagery, descriptions, and racist messages from the past and today.

Did you catch the last "POC POV" sticker?

Facing Race Conference - Coloring Sheet

 

Hey fam, excited to share this coloring sheet I illustrated for Race Forward (formerly Colorlines). Shout out to Erin Zipper for bringing me in to do this. And shout out to Nicky Rodriguez who also illustrated a coloring sheet. Quickly, Facing Race is an annual conference where organizers, educators, artists, and regular folks like you get together to talk about racial justice. For some people that inspires eyes rolling, but for the eclectic mix of folks who go it is a lifetime of work. Learn more about it by following Race Forward and attending the conference virtually. 

And download the coloring sheet to have fun drawing!

Here's a bit of process from the art making:

Thumbnails

Sketches

Final drawing used as a coloring sheet during the 2020 Facing Race conference.

Dig this? Here's an illustration I did for Oakland Rising in the past and one done for an Elefint Designs collab w/ John Legend and the ACLU.

 Coloring sheets by myself and Nicky Rodriguez

Snippets from the drawing

Mo' Better Blues (1990) - Movies I Love 2

 

Possibly my favorite Spike Lee film. Or at least in the top 3. This is a love story with a whole lot of good music. Check out this article where the two leading ladies Indigo and Clark talk about the film in retrospect, as this film is 30 years old y'all!

 So much to say about Denzel's smooth status in this. His confidence and his flaws. There's a lot in this about Brooklyn of course. And a ton about friendship and ART! I love the little nods to Trane, to the Five percenter's, to colorism, monogamy, sexism, and the consumption of Black Art. Please watch this if you're a fan of Spike, Jazz, or Black Artists. 

Watch the trailer, and listen to the soundtrack!!!!! Bradford Marsalis, Bill Lee, they all do their thing on it!

Check out my last fav movie: RAD

What is this? This is a part of my blog where I share my favorites films. I enjoy them for their pacing, action, comedy, drama, lighting, acting, score, so many things. I grew up as a lover of cinema going with my parents, friends, and by myself. I'm no scholar but I bet I could find a movie we both love to talk about. Stay tuned for more.....

Puerto Rico -Marilisa Jiménez Garcia

 

Fam, this is a book about Puerto Rican hxstory edited by a Boricua scholar and activist named Marilisa Jiménez Garcia. It's published by "Teaching for Change" a DC non profit who focus on teaching the shit US hxstory books typically have ignored or left out. Growing up around a small but vocal community of Puerto Ricans here in the Bay Area and living in NYC I have always wanted to learn more about the struggle for a free Boriken (Puerto Rico) and some of its great figures. So for Women's Hxstory month, Inktober, etc I have drawn some Puerto Ricans. Please share this educational opportunity to read, teach, and learn from this very detailed compilation of art, poetry, people, events, places, etc. 

LINK

Shout to Marilisa and Teaching for Change for including some of my work in the book which you can see below. In the book they talk about Salsa, Bomba y Plena, Vejigantes, the island of Vieques, Hurricane Maria, US Colonialism, Afro Latin identity, the Puerto Rican diaspora, and so much more.

Repeal the Jones Act

Arturo Schomburg

Pura Belpre

Reading poster