Moreno Valley College Puente Program and Early Childhood Education Center held Dia de los Niños/Libros (Day of the Child/Book) for the sixth straight year on April 30th to celebrate the multilingual diversity and wellness of children.
Dia de los Niños/Libros is a day that highlights the cultural and linguistic diversity of children. Children’s Day was created in the 1920’s and different parts of the world celebrate Children’s Day, and Dia de los Niños/Libros by showcasing the different cultural backgrounds of children as well connecting them to multilingual literacy. Pat Mora who is a librarian and author, started linking the events together to not only celebrate children and their literacy, but their cultural backgrounds as well.
Here at MVC, the Puente Program, and the Early Childhood Education Center collaborate with each other and have the children celebrate this day. The Puente Club and community from Children’s Literature donated books for the children to read and learn about diversity and multilingualism. This year was the first year that the children were able to celebrate the event in SAS 121 and visit the college.
“We have our youth [from the ECE center] come in and celebrate and since we are doing English 1B, we link the importance of storytelling and the importance of representation in storytelling,” said one of the event organizers, English Professor Emma Pacheco. “There’s one thing to talk about the importance of representation, but when you see it in action and you see the beauty of our youth collaborating I think that’s so beautiful.”
The books that were donated from the Puente club were from Lil Libros. Lil Libros is a publishing company that began in Los Angeles when two friends and mothers, Patty Rodriguez and Ariana Stein came together with a vision to create captivating books that they did not have access to growing up—books that celebrate cultural diversity and bilingual literature in English and Spanish.
Some of the books were STEAM focused and were authored by Ellen Ochoa, the first Latina astronaut, while others focused on teaching students about vocabulary or colors. The books were available in both English and Spanish in an effort to emphasize the importance of multilingual literacy. Moreover, these stories showcase diversity, which is the objective of this event. The organizers want the children to be able to celebrate, identify with themselves in these stories, and feel excited about literacy.
“We promote multicultural literacy and cultural awareness not only about Día, but also the importance of these stories at a critical age,” Professor Emma Pacheco said.
Some parents were able to join their kids for this event and they were more than welcomed to not only celebrate Día with their kids, but learn more about multicultural literacy and multilingualism along with their kids and appreciate their own culture as well. The goal of Día is to continue the multilingual literacy celebration beyond the classroom and ensure that the parents carry this into their homes and communities.
“I hope they go to any form of celebration like libraries as they do celebrate Día on April 30th and they learn more about this event to bring that multicultural literacy as well as multilingualism in their homes,” Professor Emma Pacheco said.
If you didn’t know what Dia de los Niños/Libros was, now you know now. Next year, when April 30th comes around, take the time to celebrate the day by learning about diverse people with different cultural backgrounds.
