Teaching cultural awareness with typography

It is a sad truth of our society that certain forms of language speak louder than others, such that certain voices remain inaudible no matter how important their words may be. The book Dreaming America: Voices of Undocumented Youth in Maximum-Security Detention seeks to remedy this injustice by sharing, in Spanish and English, the words of unaccompanied children held in maximum-security detention by the US Office of Refugee Resettlement. The goal of this project was to show students that their designs can remind people of the unjust reality of our current immigration laws and raise awareness. There is an extraordinary number of high-profile issues in the news that directly relate to immigration, racism and social justice. Graphic design can leave a mark, reminding us to listen to the voices that deserve our attention, even when barriers both social and physical make them difficult to hear. Students created typographic visual interpretation of the poems and the pieces were included in a small edition collaborative artist book. During this session, I would like to present the outcome of this project, how it impacted students, the potential outreach created in our community.