Wissen über Brücken

Leyendo Resistencia / Widerstand lesen / Reading Resistance 

by Verena Melgarejo Weinandt

to do at home

Masks and children’s book recommendations for crafting and reading together
Downloads: templates for the masks | children’s book recommendations

What does it mean to read resistance?
Dissident reading can mean a lot of different things. It can mean reading to the child about social struggles, such as the struggles of the Latinx community in Los Angeles, who tell about their ” Janitor Strike ” and used the slogan “Si, se puede”/ “Yes, we can”, which Barack Obama later used for his election campaign. It can mean reading to the child of racist migration policies and border regimes in Europe, as described in Daniela Ortiz’s book The ABC of Racist Europe.
It can mean reading stories about the connection of indigenous communities to nature, in order to explain why they have been defending the land with such vehemence for centuries and to illustrate the non-capitalist value of water, wind and sun. It can mean using the supposedly mythical stories of indigenous communities to illustrate the struggle of the ancestors against colonial domination, which is a highly explosive political topic today.
Resisting through reading aloud also means giving the child a positive and strong self-image, for example with regard to their own body, sexuality, skin colour. Reading out resistance can mean reading out stories in which the families consist not only of father, mother, child, but perhaps of several fathers or mothers, or of a mother, an aunt and the best friend. Reading resistance means that in the stories Lupita can also be in love with Ana and John prefers to be called Jenny. Reading resistance means that Black children, Children of Color, indigenous children like all other children, can be superheroes, strong and smart. Children’s books can be used to teach children where their personal limits lie and how these can best be articulated. Reading resistance means paying attention to the world of dreams and wishes and taking them seriously as vital sources of knowledge.
This and much more can mean resistance.