Rescheduled! Loisaida Learning and the Fight for Equal Education

★ Note: This event was previously scheduled for November 19, 2024.

Virtual Professional Learning Workshop
CTLE: 1 Credit

In February 1964, Black and Puerto Rican students across New York City staged the largest civil rights demonstration of the 1960s to fight for equal education called Freedom Day. Nearly half a million students, teachers and parents marched to protest the deplorable conditions and demanding integration in city public schools.

Through the early life of José Velez, who migrated with his family to New York from Puerto Rico in the 1950s, we’ll look at the history of educating immigrant and migrant children in the U.S. and the role Puerto Ricans played to make education more equal for all. We’ll take a look inside the home he grew up in, listen to family oral histories, and think about what it was like for him to grow up on the Lower East Side—specifically what his education looked like, whether that was from school, his community, the media, or from his mother, Ramonita Rivera Saez, who parented him by herself for most of her life.

If you have any questions about the workshop, email us at [email protected].