On January 8th a group of over twenty middle and high school New York City educators had the opportunity to meet and learn from Julio Anta, author of Sí, Se Puede (Ten Speed Graphic). The event was hosted by PRH Education at the Penguin Random House headquarters as part of a professional development training cohort led by the NYC Department of Education’s Division of Multilingual Learning.
Julio Anta
Julio Anta is the author of many graphic novels and comic books for young readers and adults including Frontera, his young adult debut illustrated by frequent collaborator Jacoby Salcedo, and Sí, Se Puede: The Latino Heroes Who Changed the United States, a non-fiction graphic novel illustrated by Yasmín Flores Montañez.
Julio was born and raised in Miami, Florida, and currently resides in New York City where he works to tell narratively rich stories about a diverse range of Latinx characters for readers of all ages. Forthcoming work includes a slate of graphic novels for HarperAlley, Random House Graphic, First Second and DC Comics.
Sí, Se Puede is a graphic novel that follows a group of Hispanic-Americans as they embark on an interactive museum tour to meet Latino heroes they may not have learned about in school. The high tech, immersive exhibit allows the tour group to meet the unsung Latino rebels, artists, and activists who changed the United States—from Dolores Huerta to Desi Arnaz to Lin-Manuel Miranda.
Julio Anta presenting his book
Anta gave an inspiring presentation on his book and emphasized how necessary it is to shine a spotlight on these often-overlooked Latino historic figures. After his talk he answered questions from attendees and signed copies of Sí, Se Puede. All the educators were thrilled to take the books back to their schools, agreeing that it is a much-needed staple for their social studies classrooms.
The rest of the day was dedicated to professional development with a presentation from Carla España and Dr. Luz Yadira Herrera, co-creators of the PRH Translanguaging Collections. All the educators in the room had previously received the collections and got to learn firsthand from the creators how to implement them in the classroom. Their presentation gave the educators an opportunity to ask questions and bounce ideas off each other with the benefit of having the creators in the room with them to give guidance.
Educators are often seeing whole classes of multilingual students who require language instruction, and our titles and resources offer strategies to support these bilingual and multilingual classrooms. This all-day event was a testament to the power of connecting educators to our authors and books that reflect the diverse experiences and perspectives of the students they teach.
