Loving your hair and changing the world

Last year this Sesame Street Muppet sang “I love my hair,” a song about loving your hair.

This year, she shares with us her ambition to “Change the World,” empowering children with the idea that they can be anything they want to be.

All Roads Film Festival

by Robert Rios III

On a mild day in September, I stepped off the bus from NYC and arrived in our nation’s capital to attend the All Roads Film Festival, hosted by the National Geographic Society. Previously having pre-screened and reviewed several of the films for Being Latino, I had the chance to meet many great film-makers, and the privilege of speaking on a panel with two of them, Roberto Olivares (Silvestre Pantaleón) and noted Chicano Activist and Director Jesus Treviño (Visions of Aztlan ) – about Latinos in Modern Media.

Latinos’ self-hate?

– via Huffington Post

The details may change, but every Latino shares a version of the same story: that moment when another Latino attacked her . . . for not being Latino enough.

For my friend Ali, it happened during her first week at college. She had pledged a sorority, and as she stood in the middle of campus one day trying to spread the word about her organization, she noticed a group of Latinas across the way who were promoting their social activism efforts. Ali walked over to introduce herself, but as soon as the girls saw her sorority pin, they turned their backs on her.

If the shoe fits…

by Maria Ortiz

The year 2011 has been a great for women in film and television. Bridesmaids dispelled the myth that women can’t be funny. The highest rated new shows on television are CBS’ 2 Broke Girls and FOX’s New Girl. Like the former’s title, the mainstream audience has been blessed with new, more authentic portrayals of what it’s like to be women today. So what’s the problem?

We haven’t seen a new Latina.

Halloween costumes – all in good fun?

– via ABC News

Designed by STARS

“We’re a culture, not a costume: This is who I am, and this is not okay.” That is the message Ohio University’s Students Teaching About Racism in Society (STARS) is sending to its fellow students, and now the world. Each poster in the series takes a stab at costumes depicting stereotypes of certain ethnicities.

The posters were created by the 10 members of the organization with the goal of “highlighting these offensive costumes because we’ve all seen them. We just wanted to say, ‘Hey, this is not cool. This is offensive and this shouldn’t be taken lightly.’ It’s offending a culture and people should be aware.”

MLK Jr. Memorial not made in the USA

by Eric Jude Cortes

The Washington Mall is one of the greatest places in America to take a long stroll. An hour or two of your time, could bring about a beautiful sense of awareness of our history. However, there is one memorial that I refuse to visit. Martin Luther King, Jr. is one of my favorite Americans, but his memorial is awful. In addition to it being an overall ugly memorial – Martin Luther King was humble, and the memorial makes him like he is big, scary and mean – there are plenty of reasons why you should not only avoid it, but also hope for its destruction.