Latinxs have played important roles in many different social justice movements throughout US history. Latinxs have intersecting identities. Latinxs can be disabled, LGBTQ+, homeless; Latinxs are women, they are workers, and they have diverse racial identities. There is not one ‘Latinx movement,’ which we see in this unit. Throughout history, Latinxs have been present in nearly every civil and human rights movement.

Latinx activists have used many different strategies such as protest, direct service, political participation, community education, and art to work toward social justice. This unit will include the different ways Latinx activists have accomplished their goals.

Young people as activists: many of the activists highlighted began their work in their teens and early 20’s. Notably, the Young Lords, a radical activist group, was started and run by young people all across the country. Also, student activists in high school and college in Connecticut today are the reason this class is now offered in our schools.

Latinxs played an active role in fighting for the rights of all marginalized people, working and fighting in solidarity with others struggling for their rights including Black civil rights, disability rights, LGBTQ+ rights, labor rights, women’s rights, educational rights, and more.

Latinx activism is ongoing and many of the organizations that started decades ago are still around and many initiatives have started just within the past decade. Throughout this section, we will be highlighting “local realities,” to make modern-day connections in and around our communities to these historical Latinx activists. Some of the activists included in this section are still alive and active today.

We will be using the activists below in a historical timeline / thematic way to show each form of activism Latinos have played a part in but also show how they are still being continued in our local realities.

Latinxs have played important roles in nearly every social justice movement throughout US history. Latinx activists have used many different strategies such as protest, direct service, political participation, community education, and art to work toward social justice. Click here to learn about some notable Latinx activists in US history.

Also, student activists in high school and college in Connecticut today are the reason the course on African-American and Latinx Studies is now offered in CT high schools.

Latinxs played an active role in fighting for the rights of all marginalized people, working and fighting in solidarity with others struggling for their rights including Black civil rights, disability rights, LGBTQ+ rights, labor rights, women’s rights, educational rights, and more.

Latinx activism is ongoing and many of the organizations that started decades ago are still around and many initiatives have started just within the past decade. Throughout this section, we will be highlighting “local realities,” to make modern-day connections in and around our communities to these historical Latinx activists. Some of the activists included in this section are still alive and active today.

Connecticut has been home to a plethora of Latinx activists working toward justice. This section will highlight the people working toward change in our own communities.

These learning activities include both in-class exercises as well as take-home assignments and projects for students to participate in. Collaboration and inquiry are of high importance here. Students should be challenged to ask their own questions and do their own research during this unit. They should also be encouraged to communicate and work with fellow students as well as teachers in a variety of ways. This method of learning mirrors the ways that activists have learned from and educated one another throughout history.

Read and Respond

Students will take turns reading aloud about historical Latinx activists. Afterwards, students will write a few sentences about the activist whose story they resonated with most and why, along with any more questions they have. Students will share what they wrote about with small groups of classmates and afterwards participate in a full class discussion about their discussions.

Build a Timeline

As a class, students will build a timeline of social justice movements and actors in the United States. Students will also add historical events from other units of this class as well as from generalized U.S. history. This activity will allow students to contextualize how activist movements interacted with their surroundings and played a role in history.

Share a Connection

Students will find a piece of media that relates to an activist or movement they resonated with and share that piece of media with the class. Media can include a picture, song, short video, piece of artwork, etc. Students will give a short introduction about the piece of media they chose before showing it to the class.

Take Home Assignment 

Students can choose a Latino or Black Activist of their choice that they believe left an impact on the United States to this day. With the activist they choose, they must represent a movement that occurred during the Civil Rights Era, and another should locate their New Era local counterpart. This can be done as either a small research assignment or even a powerpoint presentation.

Start a Movement

This will be a group project so that students can simulate the collaborative organizing of activists throughout history. Students will be challenged to think of the issues that they believe exist in their community of peers. Students will create a plan to start a movement of their choice to put a stop to the injustice, however large or small, that they chose to highlight. In the final version of this project, students will appoint themselves to various roles within their new movement, explain how they would attract others to their cause, and what strategies they would use to enact change. They should also detail how they can sustain their movement through various changes so that other students would be able to keep the movement going even if they were to leave.

Social media campaign:

Groups of students should work together to creative and engaging educational content about Black and Latinx contributions to a social justice movement of their choice. Students can create their own educational graphics or videos in the format of instagram posts, infographics, tik tok videos, youtube videos, blog posts, or other social media or digital mediums. Students can choose to highlight a particular activist or a particular era in social justice, or they can choose a social justice theme to follow throughout US history. “Posts” should be easy to read and accessible for all levels of learning and students can get creative, adopting popular social media trends or fun formats to get their information across. Students should also cite recent news stories and current events in their content. Alternatively, students can imagine how historical activists might campaign differently if they had access to today’s social media platforms. What might Cesar Chavez have done with Tik Tok? The teacher can decide if the projects should be launched on actual platforms through accounts created in class or if the projects will be kept just for classroom use. Through this project, students will exercise their creativity and gain experience in professional/educational use of social media that they can use for portfolios and resumes.

Monument project:

Students propose a monument to be built at school or in the community commemorating a Latinx activist or movement. They can be as creative as they would like, but they should explain who or what they chose and why, where the monument should be, what it should look like, and what its significance or purpose would be in the community. Students should be encouraged to be innovative and think outside of the box about their monuments. Who and what is usually celebrated? What do monuments normally look like? How does the community interact with monuments? How can students creatively challenge these expectations?