“I Didn’t Know Coloring Books Could Be Published Como Research”: Creating Research-Informed Counterstory Coloring Books

• In Event: Creative Coalitions: Considering Counterstories, Identity, and Performance

Abstract

There are multiple ways to tell a story, and I pride myself in producing research as counterstories that are accessible and enjoyable to both academic and non-academic audiences. Informed by critical race counterstorytelling, I created a social justice coloring book with the help of artistic friends and local Latinx artists. In this paper, I explain why counterstorytelling, as a framework, served as the foundation for this coloring book and I include several examples of the coloring pages. Additionally, I discuss how and why this coloring book is a tool for cultural empowerment in my community. Ultimately, I argue that artistic representations of counterstories challenge systems of oppression, identify historical harms, and imagine remedies that disrupt traditional forms of knowledge production.

Author

• Martín Alberto Gonzalez, Portland State University