Raising A Phonation For Marginalized Perspectives

Jenny Lacika ’06 never expected to get a children’second book writer. She majored inward management at MIT together with started her career in management consulting.

Then multiple sclerosis changed her trajectory.

Now she is celebrating the publication of her starting time book, Again, Essie? It’sec a feat that has taken a lot of persistence from a woman who had initially quit function because of fatigue in addition to cognitive challenges, simply Lacika says the Institute helped ready her for the unexpected: “Learning to bounce back was a huge affair I got from MIT.”

Lacika started to write because she hoped the mental challenge would prove therapeutic. Inspired past reading to her outset child, she focused on stories for children. But she had never done creative writing earlier, in addition to at outset “it wasn’t working because I wasn’t writing well-nigh things I was genuinely passionate near.”

Then Lacika saw a call for submissions seeking math-based stories for preschoolers that featured a cultural chemical element. As a Chicana from New Mexico who has ever loved science, engineering science, applied science, and math, she recognized an opportunity to tell a storey relevant to her own life. “My boy was about the target age, in addition to it was really fun exploring math concepts alongside him,” she says.

The cultural chemical element of Again, Essie? is subtle—at that place are a few Spanish words inward the English text (the book will as well be published inward Spanish)—only Lacika says she hopes the children inwards her community run across themselves in the characters. “The reason it’second of import to me to accept this representation is merely having kids meet themselves every bit mathematical thinkers—too having other kids encounter them as capable,” she says.

In the volume, a boy builds a wall out of everyday objects, demonstrating basic geometry. “I strive to make narratives where kids are exploring the math without any especial materials or tools,” Lacika says. “In my community, in that location’s not a lot of room inward family unit budgets to purchase tools for math exploration.”

In addition to math-based titles currently being prepared for publication, Lacika has written Take Pride in the Ride, a children’sec moving picture book nigh the fancy cars known equally lowriders; it’sec due out inward 2024. She is besides working on a book highlighting the contributions of disabled people.

“For a long fourth dimension, books almost marginalized perspectives were almost marginalized perspectives as well as non from marginalized perspectives,” she says. “I want to celebrate those marginalized perspectives.”