Acclaimed journalist Maria Hinojosa decided to adapt her memoir for young readers after she thought about the size and scope of the U.S. Latino population.
“I was like, yeah, I don’t write for kids,” Hinojosa, 61, said. “But then you think about the ages — the median age of Latinos and Latinas in the U.S. — I have to be writing this book.”
A 2019 Pew Research Center study found that the most common age for U.S. Latinos in 2018 was 11, compared to 58 for white Americans.
“We have to get to our kids,” said Hinojosa, “and definitely another story about Latinos and Latinas, another narrative.”
The host of radio’s “Latino USA” recently released a new adaptation of her 2020 book, “Once I Was You,” aimed at kids ages 8 to 12. Hinojosa takes her readers on her journey from Mexico to Chicago to New York City, as she pursues her dreams and finds herself. Kirkus Reviews called it a “timely and important story skillfully adapted for young people.”
Acclaimed journalist Maria Hinojosa decided to adapt her memoir for young readers after she thought about the size and scope of the U.S. Latino population.
“I was like, yeah, I don’t write for kids,” Hinojosa, 61, said. “But then you think about the ages — the median age of Latinos and Latinas in the U.S. — I have to be writing this book.”
A 2019 Pew Research Center study found that the most common age for U.S. Latinos in 2018 was 11, compared to 58 for white Americans.
“We have to get to our kids,” said Hinojosa, “and definitely another story about Latinos and Latinas, another narrative.”
The host of radio’s “Latino USA” recently released a new adaptation of her 2020 book, “Once I Was You,” aimed at kids ages 8 to 12. Hinojosa takes her readers on her journey from Mexico to Chicago to New York City, as she pursues her dreams and finds herself. Kirkus Reviews called it a “timely and important story skillfully adapted for young people.”
“I like the fact that this book has got attitude,” Hinojosa said, noting that the young generation that has lived through the Black Lives Matter movement and the pandemic is smart and self-aware. “I want them to see themselves and hopefully become journalists, at least some of them.”
The title of the original version of “Once I Was You” stems from an encounter Hinojosa had with a child who had migrated at the height of the family separations policy in 2019.
“I’m not saying I was ever a child migrant from Central America,” “But I know what it is like to be ‘the other,’ and that makes it easier to recognize ‘the other’ around you.”
Hinojosa and her family came to the U.S. from Mexico in 1962 and settled in Chicago, where her father, a doctor, was a professor.