VivirLatino

As a mother with a teenage daughter about to enter the NYC Public High School system, as a woman of color with daughters of color living in New York City sexual harassment and violence is always somewhere on my mind. Sometimes these thoughts determine how I dress, what time I go out, where I go out to, and what streets to walk through or not. As a radical tutor who works with young women of color who are learning inside the NYC public school system and as a daughter who clearly remembers walking home from school in my neighborhood feeling a gauntlet of eyes and words against my body and the shame I felt when receiving my first piropo/catcall while walking with my mom, I was excited and feeling grateful for the release of Hey, Shorty! A Guide to Combating Sexual Harassment ad Violence in Schools and on the Streets by Joanna N. Smith. Mandy Van Deven, And Maegan Huppuch of Girls for Gender Equity.

The book follows two paths. One is a narrative path that looks at the process of organizing young woman, primarily of color, first in a public school in Brooklyn and later NYC wide around the issues of sexual harassment and violence experiences daily from the moment they leave their homes to go to school until they return home. The second path, which crosses and overlaps with the first, contains concrete strategies for understanding, confronting, and preventing sexual harassment and violence.
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