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October 2–6, 2023

Teaching for Change launched Teach Central America Week to encourage and support teaching about Central America during Latinx Heritage Month. We have collected lessons, booklists, biographies of noted historical figures, and readings for free use by classroom teachers. Read about past weeks here.

This year, we continue to partner with educators, schools, organizations, and community members to embolden and uplift teaching about Central America inside and outside of the classroom.

Join the growing community of supporters showcasing the vast and deep expanses of Central American history and culture.

This newly updated lesson introduces students to key figures in twentieth and twenty-first century Central America. It then builds upon this knowledge in examining the role the United States has played in the affairs of these smaller nations residing in what many U.S. presidents have considered our own backyard.

Students will emerge with a deeper understanding of:



• key concepts and themes which define contemporary Central American politics and society,
• U.S. foreign policy in Central America, and
• the push factors leading to Central American migration to the United States.

In the 1930s and ‘40s, Guatemalan labor activist Luisa Moreno unionized Black and Latina cigar rollers and other tobacco workers in Florida and helped a dwindling cigar workers’ union that had been terrorized by the Ku Klux Klan. She organized cane workers in Louisiana, pecan shellers in San Antonio (with Emma Tenayuca), and tuna-packing workers in San Diego. Her organizing work with sugar beet workers in Colorado was memorialized in song.

In 1948, she became one of thousands of activists investigated by the State Senate Committee on Un-American Activities, and she was threatened with deportation unless she would testify against another labor organizer.

In the 1980s and 1990s, Guatemalan and Salvadoran immigrants helped organize far-reaching workers’ rights campaigns to demand higher wages and safer working conditions.

Salvadoran immigrants in California were pivotal in Justice for Janitors, a low-paid workers’ movement that helped inspire today’s $15 minimum wage campaign. Guatemalan immigrants joined with Florida’s Haitian and Mexican farmworkers to form the Coalition of Immokalee Workers. They used strategies common to Latin American protest movements, including street theater and socially conscious radio broadcasts, to unite Florida’s agricultural workers.

At teachingcentralamerica.org we offer many teaching stories to add to your classroom activities and learning throughout the year.

Please tell us how you teach about Central America in your classroom. We are always looking to lift up the incredible work pre-K-12 social justice educators are doing to bring Central America into their classrooms. In appreciation for your time and your thorough answers, we will send you a book of your choice from the list in the form below. Learn more about the books here.

Teaching for Change

PO Box 73038

Washington, DC 20056

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