Queer Latinidades in Children’s Literature

Join the Center for Latin American Studies, Stanford University Libraries, and Stanford's Office of the Associate Vice Provost for Inclusion, Community and Integrative Learning for a webinar exploring the important role picture books can have as a starting point for conversations centered on advocacy for LGBT Latina/o(x) youth. Featuring guest writers, scholars, and educators Ernesto Javier Martínez, Isabel Millán, and Juan Ríos Vega. Moderated by Rigoberto Marquéz.

Ernesto Javier Martínez is an award-winning queer Chicano/Puerto Rican writer and educator, born and raised in Oakland, California. He studied literature at Stanford and Cornell, and currently works as a professor of Indigenous, Race, and Ethnic Studies at the University of Oregon. He is the recipient of numerous awards, including the Lambda Literary Award, the Imagen Award, the HBO Latinx Short Film Award, and the International Latino Book Award. His academic books include: Gay Latino Studies: A Critical Reader (Duke UP, 2011), On Making Sense: Queer Race Narratives of Intelligibility (Stanford UP, 2012), and The Truly Diverse Faculty: New Dialogues in American Higher Education (Palgrave, 2014). He is also the author of When We Love Someone We Sing to Them, the first Latinx children’s book published in North America about a boy who loves a boy. The American Library Association honored it as one of thirteen top children’s books with LGBT content. This book also earned two International Latino Book Awards. In 2019, he wrote and co-produced a short film, entitled La Serenata, about two parents who struggle with their Mexican musical tradition when their son requests to learn a love song for another boy. This film premiered in Hollywood, won numerous awards, and earned a licensing agreement with HBO Max (2020-22). Martinez is a former Sesame Workshop Writers’ Room Fellow, where he apprenticed in children’s media, and he is the co-writer of a forthcoming feature-length PBS TV special for the Emmy Award-winning children’s television show, Daniel Tiger’s Neighborhood.  

Isabel Millán is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies at the University of Oregon. She holds a PhD in American Culture from the University of Michigan and is a 2021-2022 recipient of the Woodrow Wilson/Institute for Citizens and Scholars “Career Enhancement Fellowship.” Her research areas include critical ethnic studies, transnational feminist and queer theories, bilingual children’s cultural productions, comics, and science fiction. Millán is currently completing her monograph on queer of color children’s literature tentatively titled Coloring into Existence: Queer of Color Worldmaking in Children’s Literature (under contract with New York University Press). She recently published her first children’s picture book titled Chabelita’s Heart/El corazón de Chabelita (2022, Reflection Press). Her other publications include articles in Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society, and Aztlán: A Journal of Chicano Studies, as well as chapters in Graphic Borders: Latino Comics Past, Present, and Future, The Routledge Companion to Latina/o Popular Culture, and Keywords for Comic Studies.

Juan A. Ríos Vega received his doctorate in Philosophy in Educational Studies, Cultural Studies Concentration from The University of North Carolina at Greensboro (2014) and a Women’s and Gender Studies Certificate and North Carolina Principal License (2014). His areas of research include: Critical Race Theory, Latin@ Critical Theory, Social Justice in Education, Queers of Color Theories, and Anti-Racist Education. In 2015, he published his first book Counterstorytelling Narratives of Latino Teenage Boys: From Vergüenza to Échale Ganas. In 2020, Dr. Ríos published High School Latinx Counternarratives: Experiences in School and Post-graduation and Carlos, The Fairy Boy/Carlos, El Niño Hada. Currently, Dr. Ríos is an Associate Professor in the Department of Education, Counseling, and Leadership at Bradley University.

Rigoberto Marquéz is the new ICIL Fellow with Stanford's Office of the Associate Vice Provost for Inclusion, Community and Integrative Learning and was previously at Stanford’s Center for Comparative Studies on Race and Ethnicity where he was a lecturer and led the academic programs and community engaged learning opportunities. Dr. Marquéz’s scholarship focuses on understanding the roles family and community play in the lives of queer Latina/o/x youth and the implications this has for theory, policy and practice. His work has been published in the Journal of Homosexuality, Curriculum Inquiry, Equity and Excellence in Education and Aztlan: A Journal of Chicano Studies. Before joining Stanford, he was a Provost Postdoctoral Fellow at Teachers College, Columbia University and a Gerardo Marin Fellow in the School of Education at the University of San Francisco. Dr. Marquéz earned his PhD from the UCLA Graduate School of Education and Information Studies and is a native of Los Angeles.

Co-sponsored by Stanford University Libraries and Stanford's Office of the Associate Vice Provost for Inclusion, Community and Integrative Learning