Cartooning Against Silence: Communal Prayers to Heal My Undocumented Heart

As part of the SJSU King Library's Banned Books Week, writer, cartoonist, and educational leader Alberto Ledesma will show and discuss his latest cartoons! In these images, Ledesma (himself formerly undocumented) uses art to advocate on behalf of undocumented students and to respond to anti-immigrant rhetoric. He also explores how the sudden development of a serious illness made him realize the tolls that all immigrants pay beyond the psychological in exchange for a chance to achieve the American dream. Is it worth it? That is the question that anti-immigration forces want us to always be asking, as they seek to trigger a perpetual existential angst in us. However, the fact is that the American dream does not belong to any one in particular. It is a shared ideal that belongs, as Langston Hughes once observed, to all those “seeking a home where he himself is free.” In the face of book bans that attempt to censor diverse narratives of American dreams, art, literature, and, indeed, comics offer a powerful testament to the struggles and resiliency of undocumented immigrants seeking better futures for themselves and their families. Online: Register Here

Alberto Ledesma, grew up in East Oakland, California. He completed both his undergraduate and graduate studies at UC Berkeley, earning a Ph.D. in Ethnic Studies. He has served as a faculty member at California State University, Monterey Bay, and as a lecturer in Ethnic Studies at UC Berkeley, and has held several staff positions at Berkeley, including Director of Admissions at the School of Optometry and Writing Program Coordinator at the Student Learning Center. As a writer, Dr. Ledesma has published academic articles, poetry, and short stories, with essays appearing in ColorLines, New American Media, and The Harvard Journal of Education. He is also a past member of Sandra Cisneros's Macondo Writers Workshop and the Voices of Our Nations Artists Writers Workshop. He is the award-winning author of Diary of a Reluctant Dreamer, and his forthcoming follow-up is tentatively titled Diary of an Impossible Dreamer

Supported by a College of Humanities & the Arts’ Artistic Excellence Programming Grant.