Journalist creates illustration & scholarship for LatinX writers
First of all, I love your print! I can’t wait to hang it up in my office area. Can we start with what compelled you to create the print? I saw it shortly after the launch of Jeanine Cummins book “American Dirt” and I wanted to find out how you felt about the book and why?
I follow many LatinX reporters, writers and activists on twitter and I saw many of their tweets describing their anger and frustration at the publishing world and at major literary people, like Stephen King and Sandra Cisneros, giving their thumbs up at this new novel. I started following Myriam Gurba as she was front and center with her raw, honest review of American Dirt. Check it out here. Reading Myriam’s piece and seeing why it was rejected angered me. Then reading Esme Bermudez , reporter for the L.A. Times, twitter threads, I understood the problem. I felt frustrated and anger, but not surprised that yet again, our stories are being told by people not within our culture and reaping 7-figure benefits, when our own stories by writers in the LatinX community would never! The nail on the coffin was seeing Oprah go all in on the CBS morning show.
This is not to say that people outside the culture can’t write about other cultures. I have worked with many reporters who capture the essence and poetry of the Black and Latino culture … There’s a right way to do it and from everything I read, this is not it. Instead of tweeting into the Twitter abyss, because that’s so easy to do, I thought of what I could do with my platform. I started thinking of how I can put my thoughts into an illustration. I looked on Instagram for inspiration as IG has a huge community of readers who post beautiful photos of the books they read …I found Lupita Aquino of @lupita_reads with a book pile of books one should read instead of “American Dirt.” And it hit me! I can make an illustration of this book stack to help drive LatinX authors and our voices in a visual direction.
How did you and Myriam Gurba connect to create this Latinx Writing Scholarship? What does the scholarship entail and do you have any details on when applications will begin to be taken?
I created my own Otomi pattern to embrace the book stack of our voices, inspired by the AD cover and the quote, “They Tried to Bury Us, They Didn’t Know We Were Seeds” with a flower growing at the top. I spent all night working on this illustration on the day the book was released. The next morning, once I posted the final image to my followers on Instagram, the response was surreal. People asked to buy a print but I felt weird selling something and reaping the benefits and then it hit me, “Why not sell it and donate all the money to a scholarship for future LatinX writers so they could fulfill their dream?”
I didn’t know where to start or how, but I kept getting comments and I knew there was more to do than to post an image and get “likes” for it. SO I slid into Myriam’s DMs on Instagram that afternoon and said this exactly:
HOLA ! I’ve been asked by my followers if they can buy my illustration of your book stack. Would you like to sell my design to help fund young Latinx writers with a scholarship? People want to buy my illustration. I think we can capitalize on this to provide for future writers. Just throwing it out there. And she said Yes!
There are no details at this moment on the future scholarship. There’s all sorts of things that need to get in place before we announce all the specifics so stay tune.
Can you share your own thoughts on the importance of having #ourvoices shared in the publishing world? Why is this an important cause for you?
I have worked as a visual journalist for 22 years and I have always been the one Latina of five or less in those newsrooms. Our voices matter and we have not been properly represented. I have always been told, “you work in big newsrooms, so do something about it.” Behind the scenes, I always pitched LatinX story ideas to reporters and editors and some ideas made it unto print and online. But I always felt like it wasn’t enough. Now that I am not in a big newsroom, and I work for a newspaper group with flexibility, I want to do more to uplift our voices. This was my first step and now I want to create and help my community, our voices, in any way I can.
What has been the feedback you have received on your print and on joining the conversation on the importance of #ourvoices?
It’s been amazing and eye-opening. I am learning so much about our people. There’s so much there and this is our movement. Oprah heard our voices and she should do better and hire LatinX to be on her team. The book publishing world should do the same. Newsrooms need to diversify. All around, if companies spent time courting diversity, there wouldn’t be this uproar. BUT because of this uproar, there’s more unity in the Latinx community. We deserve better.
Did you have your “own” voices to help guide you during your career trajectory?
My parents were undocumented and we didn’t speak English when I was a child. Growing up, my siblings and I didn’t have an allowance. My parents made us work as children and while we had a great childhood, we learned the value of a dollar young in life. I once complained to my mom when we were cleaning a rich lady’s home that I didn’t want to clean houses the rest of my life … my mom told me “estudia mija para que no sufras como yo!”
My mom’s voice and all the crap she’s been through has guided me to create and grow and build my career in visual journalism and my own little design firm, The Designing Chica.
The Designing Chica
Meet the visual journalist who created a print to share her feelings on the controversial book “American Dirt” by Jeanine Cummins.
Susana Sanchez-Young, also known as The Designing Chica. Check out her website and order her print today!
“My parents were undocumented and we didn’t speak English when I was a child. Growing up, my siblings and I didn’t have an allowance. My parents made us work as children and while we had a great childhood, we learned the value of a dollar young in life.
I once complained to my mom when we were cleaning a rich lady’s home that I didn’t want to clean houses the rest of my life … my mom told me “estudia mija para que no sufras como yo!”
My mom’s voice and all the crap she’s been through has guided me to create and grow and build my career in visual journalism and my own little design firm, The Designing Chica.”