NEWS RELEASE

JEFFERSON PARISH, LOUISIANA

June 14, 2023
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

NOTED SALVADORAN CHILDREN'S BOOKS AUTHOR TO GIVE FREE BILINGUAL READING AT EAST BANK REGIONAL LIBRARY

JEFFERSON, LA – Jorge Argueta, a Salvadoran award-winning poet and author of many highly acclaimed bilingual children's books and short stories, will perform a bilingual storytime at 12:30 p.m. on Wednesday, July 12, 2023 at the East Bank Regional Library, 4747 W. Napoleon Ave., Metairie.

This event is free of charge and open to the public. Registration is not necessary. As part of the presentation, 60 copies of Argueta’s book La Madre Tierra will be given away on a first-come, first-served basis.

This program is co-sponsored by the Stone Center for Latin American Studies at Tulane University in collaboration with the annual K-12 Educator Institute, Indigenous Peoples of the Americas: Climate Justice. For more information, visit stonecenter.tulane.edu.

Argueta will read and discuss his La Madre Tierra/Talking with Mother Nature series. Argueta grew up in Santo Domingo de Guzmán, El Salvador, where his grandmother, an Indian healer, told him stories from his indigenous heritage and their belief in a human-nature connection, instilling in him great respect for the environment and appreciation for oral tradition. He left El Salvador when he was 19 years old due to the ongoing Salvadoran Civil War.  

In 2001, Argueta published his first children’s book, Una Pelicula En Mi Almohada/A Movie in My Pillow, which won several awards, including The America’s Book Award. In 2003, he published three titled: Los Arboles Estan Colgando El Cielo/Trees are Hanging from the Sky; El Zipitio/Zipitio; and Xochitl la nina de las Flores?Xochitl and the Flowers. His most recent books include Hablando con Madre Tierra/Talking with More Earth, Alfredito, Luna, Lunita, Lunera/Moony Luna, and Alfredito regresa volando a su casa/Alfredito Flies Home. He is working on a memoir about growing up in El Salvador.

The Stone Center for Latin American Studies at Tulane University organizes teaching and research activities across more than 100 core and affiliated faculty in departments and schools across several campuses. It is one of the university’s biggest, most renowned interdisciplinary units.

The K-12 Educator Institute is a program sponsored by a U.S. Department of Education Title VI National Resource Center grant that convenes K-12 educators from across the nation to deepen their understanding of significant topics in the humanities and enrich their capacity for effective scholarship and teaching.

For more information regarding this event, contact Chris Smith, Manager of Adult Programming for the library, at 504-889-8143 or wcsmith@jefferson.lib.la.us.

The Jefferson Parish Library system consists of 16 locations that stretch from the Lakeshore Branch on the edge of Lake Pontchartrain to the Grand Isle Branch just steps away from the Gulf of Mexico. The library system consists of two large regional libraries and seven branches on each side of the Mississippi River. The East Bank Regional Library (4747 West Napoleon Ave., Metairie) serves as library headquarters. The Jefferson Parish Library is the second largest system in the state of Louisiana. More than 200 employees work for the Jefferson Parish Library including librarians, administration and support staff. For more information, contact the library at (504) 838-1100 or www.jefferson.lib.la.us.

For more information about Jefferson Parish, visit www.JeffParish.net Residents can also receive regular updates by following the Parish on Facebook, Twitter Youtube, JPTV and Instagram (@JeffParishGov) or by texting JPALERT or JPNOTICIAS to 888-777.

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Jefferson Parish Public Information Office 1221 Elmwood Park Boulevard, Suite 1002 Jefferson, LA 70123

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Gretchen Hirt Gendron, PIO