LATIN AMERICAN YOUTH CENTER

Our Partner

The Latin American Youth Center (LAYC) is a DC-based nonprofit organization that offers a variety of programming to low-income youth of all backgrounds. Their mission is to empower a diverse population of youth to achieve a successful transition to adulthood, through multi-cultural, comprehensive, and innovative programs that address youths’ social, academic, and career needs.

Since their founding in the late 1960s, LAYC has grown from a small grassroots recreation center to a nationally recognized agency serving all low-income youth. Each year, LAYC serves over 4,000 youth and families through youth centers, school-based sites, and public charter schools in the District of Columbia and Maryland’s Prince George’s and Montgomery Counties.

Our Project

During the summer of 2017, Shout Mouse Press held a month-long workshop with LAYC's Latino Youth Leadership Council (LYLC), a passionate group of young people dedicated to social justice in their community. The workshop, led by a team of teaching artists with experience devising and illustrating comic books, resulted in a graphic memoir collection by Latinx youth that inspires, motivates, and educates its readers, and that changes the narrative about America's immigrants.

This project is timely, ambitious, and a much-needed addition to current national discussions about who we are as a country. 

This book has tremendous potential as an educational tool for schools, libraries, book clubs, and community groups. Some examples:

• Culturally competent, engaging resource for Spanish and ESL classes for teens and adults
• Resource for community engagement and social justice curricula
• Resource for non-profits serving Latino communities to educate staff, volunteers, and other stakeholders

For bulk orders, educator inquiries, and nonprofit discounts, email orders@shoutmousepress.org.

We would like to thank the DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities and UnidosUS for generously supporting this project.

Our Book