Growing up in Texas, Eva Longoria and her sisters loved reading and thought the local library was “the funnest place in the world,” as she put it. Their mother was a teacher, so Longoria was raised to value books and learning. But she is aware that not all children are so lucky.
On Wednesday, Longoria, the actor and director of “Flamin’ Hot,” announced a partnership with Mott’s to make it easier for families to access multicultural stories. Mott’s is launching a mobile library that will travel across the country, along with a program that allows families to get free books with qualifying purchases of Mott’s Fruit Flavored Snacks.
Longoria hopes to help raise awareness of diverse books and authors, especially given the ongoing controversies over book bans and ethnic studies. “We are in a moment where we should not be limiting access to books. We should be increasing access to books,” she said. “We now live in a global community, and books are the gateway to the world. … The stakes are very high in our country.”
While Longoria recalled loving books from “Charlotte’s Web” to “Moby Dick,” she rarely saw herself in the stories she enjoyed as a child. Even now, she pointed out, only about 7% of characters in published books are Latino.
It wasn’t until Longoria had her son that she became more aware of Latino books aimed at children. “I saw these titles called Lil Libros, these bilingual storybooks, and I thought, hey, I wish I’d had those when I was a kid.”
The children’s books in Mott’s “Snacks and Stories” program include several titles by Latino authors, including “Islandborn” by Junot Diaz, “What Can You Do With a Paleta?” by Carmen Tafolla and “Too Many Tamales” by Gary Soto. Some of the books are bilingual, as well.
“It is important for everyone to have access to different cultures and different communities so everybody can read stories with Latino characters,” Longoria said. “Our being reflected in stories educates other people about us, and it also educates us about ourselves.”
The media and the publishing world greatly influence how young people see themselves, she added. “You can’t be what you can’t see … and when we don’t see ourselves, we feel erased.”
Longoria is proud that the mobile library will visit cities like San Antonio, Houston, Chicago and Kansas City, Missouri, home to some communities known as “book deserts.”
“I was surprised to see that where I grew up was considered a book desert,” Longoria said of her native San Antonio. The city’s population is about two-thirds Latino.
According to Molly Ness, the founder of the “End Book Deserts” podcast, a book desert is a geographic area or community where books and reading culture are difficult to access. “The term can refer to an actual geographic place or to populations that are overlooked or underserved by public libraries and bookstores,” Ness said.
Nearly half of children in the U.S., 45%, live in book deserts, according to the American Federation of Teachers.
“Book deserts are a combination of several things,” Ness said. “There are public schools that have limited resources for their libraries, so kids can’t take home books with them, and some families don’t take advantage of public libraries because of transportation issues, proof of residency requirements or late fees.”
She cited research showing that in high-income communities, there are about 13 books for every child. By contrast, in high-poverty communities, there is about 1 book for every 300 children.
Ness is optimistic, however, about ongoing literacy and book access efforts. “Small grassroots groups, nonprofits and major corporations are all coming up with innovative ways to tackle this problem,” she said.
Houston writer and activist Tony Diaz said a variety of societal factors can contribute to book deserts.
“In some urban areas, the large corporate booksellers do not value or invest in our communities,” he said. “They are illiterate about Latinos, and so we don’t get bookstores in our parts of town.”
Compounding the problem, he said, are that Latino students might not have access to books by and for Latinos and that teachers often don’t have curriculum guides to teach about such books.
The result of such factors, Diaz said, “is that young Latinos grow up feeling like poetry, the fine arts and literature are not for them.”
It is that type of outcome that Longoria hopes initiatives such as her partnership with Mott’s can help prevent. “I didn’t curate the titles” in the Mott’s book program — “but about half of them were already in my home library,” she said.
“This project is special to me, because I am a voracious reader, and I feel that accessibility to books and diverse storytelling is so important,” Longoria said. “It was a no-brainer for me to get on board, especially with my intense desire for our community to have access to different books and also to be reflected back through them.”
