I am so honored to be over at Mamiverse today sharing a little bit of the Circle de Luz story.
Here is how my piece starts:
It started with a whisper.
What are you going to do? What are you going to do? What are you going to do?
In 2007, my first book, Hijas Americanas: Beauty, Body Image, and Growing Up Latina was published and as I toured the country to promote it, I tried to work in visits to middle and high schools to speak to young Latinas about the issues and stories discussed in the book.
At each school, I met amazing young women with astounding hopes and big dreams. I want to be a doctor, a veterinarian, a teacher, they would tell me.
Yes, yes, yes, I would say. And then I’d drive away haunted by the statistics I had come across in my research.
- 51% of Latinas get pregnant at least once before the age of twenty.
- 41% of Latinas do not graduate with their class in four years.
What are you going to do?
As friends and colleagues asked me how the book tour was going, I kept returning to this question. Soon, I was hosting focus groups with women of all backgrounds to talk about these issues….
Please go check out this piece and learn the rest of the Circle de Luz story!
And Circle de Luz is hiring our first staffer- a part-time program manager. Interested? Learn more here.
