Bringing Bilingual Books to Life & the Puerto Rican Heritage Cultural Ambassadors Program

Abstract

Anthropologist, storyteller, educator, and children’s book author Dr. Raquel M. Ortiz brings her knowledge and expertise in sharing multimedia teaching materials and community outreach to a discussion about how to use bilingual literature and materials to create engaging cultural programming that connects with our diverse communities.

First, Dr. Ortiz will provide general information about the Puerto Rican Heritage Cultural Ambassadors Program (CA), founded by the Center for Puerto Rican Studies (CENTRO) at Hunter College. The CA enables effective classroom learning and community teaching about Puerto Rican history and culture through distance, contextual, group, and project-based learning by using CENTRO’s’ collection of texts, posters, videos, and documentaries. Through competency-based projects designed to promote learning and teaching, the CA celebrates Puerto Rican heritage as it promotes historical recovery and civic engagement.

Dr. Ortiz will then share CA materials created for her book, SOFI AND THE MAGIC, MUSICAL MURAL / SOFI Y EL MÁGICO MURAL MUSICAL, that facilitate teaching Latino bilingual children’s literature. She will also speak about a CENTRO / Cleveland Public Library (CPL) Collaboration, the Cultural Ambassadors Learning Circle, that was launched this past spring. Dr. Ortiz will end her presentation by describing the steps the CPL is taking to launch the Cleveland Public Library Puppet Initiative by adapting her SOFI picture book into a bilingual, musical puppet performance. She will share the creative process used to translate her story into puppets, a set, music, and a dynamic script and production.