Actor and director Eva Longoria has announced that she is partnering with Mott’s, the apple juice company, to help provide access to multicultural stories to families, NBC News reports.
The initiative will include a new mobile library that will visit U.S. cities, including San Antonio, Houston, Chicago, and Kansas City, Missouri, paying special attention to communities considered “book deserts.” It will also include a program offering free books to families who make qualifying purchases.
Longoria told NBC News that she hoped the project would help families become more aware of diverse authors and books, especially in light of current moves to ban some of them.
“We are in a moment where we should not be limiting access to books. We should be increasing access to books,” she told the news site. “We now live in a global community, and books are the gateway to the world....The stakes are very high in our country.”
Longoria says she is particularly hoping to boost access to Latino books aimed at children and young adults.
Mott’s “Snacks and Stories” program includes bilingual books and titles by Latino authors such as Junot Díaz’s Islandborn, Carmen Tafolla’s What Can You Do With a Paleta? and Gary Soto’s Too Many Tamales.
“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.…You can’t be what you can’t see.”
Amy Reiter is a freelance writer.
