Author/Educator Speaks in Honor of Martin Luther King Jr. Day

This year’s Martin Luther King, Jr. Day speaker was local author Jennifer De Leon. In Chapel on January 16, 2024, Ms. De Leon shared her educational journey, providing insights into her experience as a child born in the United States to immigrant parents. 

Born in the Boston area to Guatemalan parents, Ms. De Leon is the author of the novel Don’t Ask Me Where I’m From and the essay collection White Space: Essays on Culture, Race, and Writing (winner of the Juniper Prize and published by UMass Press in 2021). She is also the editor of the anthology, “Wise Latinas: Writers on Higher Education,” (winner of the International Latino Book Award. Her short story, “Home Movie,”was the 2015 One City, One Story pick as part of the Boston Book Festival, and her stories and essays have appeared in over a dozen literary magazines and anthologies. Ms. De Leon is a winner of the 2016 Walter Dean Myers Grant, awarded by We Need Diverse Books, and named a 2020 Latinx Trailblazer by the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. 

After a decade teaching in Boston Public Schools, Ms De Leon is now Associate Professor of English at Framingham State University, and instructor in the Creative Writing and Literature Graduate Program at Harvard University.

In 2022 she founded Story Bridge, a program that brings people together from all walks of life to shape, share, and hear each other’s unique stories.Her latest young adult novel, Borderless, was published in April, 2023. Also on the way are two children’s picture books—So Many Gifts, and a biography of Nobel Peace Prize winner, Rigoberta Menchú.

After the School Meeting, she facilitated a smaller group discussion with students.