Américas Award 2015 Program a Success!

This past September 16 – 18 2015, the Américas Award explored themes of civil rights, identity, and environmental justice through three different educational and cultural programs in Washington, DC. The cultural and educational impact of these events and the books recognized this past year however continue to be felt. The Américas Award continues to support diversity in libraries and engage communities in critical discussions on Latin America and Latino communities in the United States. Below, you will find a description of some of the programs offered in Washington and other programs coming up. If you are interested in getting involved with any of these outreach programs or have ideas for others, please contact Denise Woltering-Vargas or 504.865.5164.

Américas Award 2015

This year’s Américas Award winning authors, Duncan Tonatiuh and Margarita Engle were presented with the 2015 Américas Award for children’s and young adult literature that portray Latin America, the Caribbean, or Latinos in the United States for their books respectively Separate is Never Equal: Sylvia Mendez & Her Family’s Fight for Desegregation and Engle’s Silver People: Voices from the Panama Canal.

Civil Rights through the Américas Award
CLASP introduced 38 K-12 educators in the Washington, D.C. area to themes of civil rights, cultural identity, family and more through the annual “Américas Award Teacher Workshop. This year’s workshop enabled educators to engage with both Duncan Tonatiuh and Margarita Engle in a hands-on, interactive workshop. The teacher workshop was hosted by Busboys & Poets’ 14th street location on Thursday, September 17th from 5:30 PM — 8:30 PM. The workshop was in collaboration with Teaching for Change. To view photos from the workshop, please check out these taken by Teaching for Change and the University of New Mexico.

2015 Américas Award Ceremony was presented on Friday, September 18, 2015 in a ceremony hosted by The Library of Congress and sponsored by the Hispanic Division, the Center for the Book, the Young Readers Center, Abrams Books, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt and by Latin American Studies centers at: Florida International University, Stanford University, Tulane University, Vanderbilt University, University of Florida, University of New Mexico, “University of Utah”:“http://latin-american-studies.utah.edu/, and the “University of Wisconsin — Milwaukee”:http://www4.uwm.edu/clacs/. The ceremony welcomed a crowd of 84 people from the DC area including two local school groups from Stonewall Middle School in Prince William County and the Oyster Adams Bilingual School in Washington, D.C. Both schools re-enacted scenes from the winning books. Check out pictures from this year’s ceremony taken by Bruce Guthrie from the Library of Congress.

The 2015 Américas Award committee members attended this year’s programming. The 2016 committee is currently busy reading submissions for this year’s competition which is accepting 2015 copyright titles for the 2016 award. Decisions will be made by April and the award ceremony will be during Hispanic Heritage month at The Library of Congress.

Upcoming Curriculum Projects

• The University of New Mexico’s Latin American & Iberian Institute is currently finalizing a comprehensive K-12 educational resource for educators to accompany Separate is Never Equal.
• Stanford University is developing a curricular resource for Silver People.

The 2015 Américas Award is made possible by these important sponsors: Florida International University, Stanford University, Tulane University, Vanderbilt University, University of Florida, University of New Mexico, “University of Utah”:“http://latin-american-studies.utah.edu/, and the “University of Wisconsin — Milwaukee.”:http://www4.uwm.edu/clacs/

Follow the Américas Award Facebook page or join the Américas listserv by sending an email to claspprograms@gmail.com.