In this lesson, students will watch and discuss a series of video clips that serve as a case study for how community members can recognize local problems and organize to address them. The class will then identify an issue in the school or local community and work as a team to plan and carry out a discrete project to improve the situation.
The video clips used in this lesson tell the stories of challenges faced by Puerto Rican migrants in New York City after World War II, the emergence of an organization called ASPIRA for Puerto Rican youth, and how ASPIRA filed a lawsuit against the New York City Board of Education to secure bilingual education for students who did not speak English.
The video clips are from the film, Antonia Pantoja: ¡Presente!, a documentary by Lillian Jiménez on the life of educator and activist Antonia Pantoja, a Puerto Rican woman who founded ASPIRA and other organizations and institutions as part of her lifelong work to strengthen and improve communities.