For Brown Girls With Sharp Edges and Tender Hearts
Prisca Dorcas Mojica Rodríguez
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For nearly a decade Prisca Dorcas Mojica Rodríguez has stood at the forefront of a cultural shift—the reckoning of the colonial project through the veil of Latinidad. Establishing a platform in 2013 via social media, Mojica Rodríguez bucked popular expectations of “Hispanic excellence” and narratives of resilience, offering in its stead a radical and political platform challenging the toxic and long held norms of the Latinx community. Her message struck a chord, and over time amassed a following of 212,000 supporters. By 2021, a book written by the voice of Latina Rebels was highly anticipated, to say the least. Mojica Rodríguez, a Nicaraguan immigrant and graduate of Vanderbilt Divinity School, witnessed the hypocrisy of academics who celebrated the work of Paulo Freire, author of Pedagogy of the Oppressed, and yet did not apply the principles that align teacher and pupil as the co-creators of knowledge. “You have to be willing to be vulnerable,” Mojica Rodríguez told The Latino Book Review, “to create bonds with the people that you're teaching—breaking down all hierarchies and all the titles that everyone (in academia especially) really loves.” Mojica Rodríguez’s debut is dedicated to proving, in the legacy of Freire, that hierarchy is irrelevant, and education is a foundational and human right. In ten comprehensive chapters, Mojica Rodríguez tackles the colonial constructs governing our world, the interrogation of which she credits for her personal liberation. Emboldened and unafraid, the author writes with intentional rage, using personal anecdotes to inspire readers—moving many to tears throughout the course of her book tour. In a style the author refers to as autoethnography, For Brown Girls with Sharp Edges and Tender Hearts invites readers beyond the gatekept world of academia and into a democratized classroom led by and written for Black, Indigenous, and Brown readers. The book, deeply researched and supplemented with a heavy bibliography, is best read actively, with pen in hand—each section begging to be underlined, contemplated, and returned to. |
The book’s publication last September was marked with a stories-high billboard in the heart of Times Square in New York City during the annual celebration of Latinx Heritage Month in the United States. Months later, Mojica Rodríguez—formerly a regular on college campuses across the country—has resumed in-person speaking engagements, and continues to marvel at the book’s reach and reception.
“You can’t really put [the] Brown Girl book in a box or category,” Mojica Rodríguez said, “it’s the first of its kind in many ways but my hope is that it will be the first of many.”
It’s clear the impact of Mojica Rodríguez and her work will be felt for generations to come.
Prisca Dorcas Mojica Rodríguez was born in Managua, Nicaragua and lives in Nashville, Tennessee. The bulk of her work is around making accessible, through storytelling and curating content, the theories and heavy material that is oftentimes only taught in the racist/classist institutions known as academia. She started the platform Latina Rebels in 2013, and currently has over 300k organic followers online. She has been featured in Telemundo, Univision, Mitú, Huffington Post Latino Voices, Guerrilla Feminism, Latina Mag, Cosmopolitan, Everyday Feminism, and was invited to the White House in the Fall of 2016.
For Brown Girls With Sharp Edges and Tender Hearts is a publication by Seal Press.
“You can’t really put [the] Brown Girl book in a box or category,” Mojica Rodríguez said, “it’s the first of its kind in many ways but my hope is that it will be the first of many.”
It’s clear the impact of Mojica Rodríguez and her work will be felt for generations to come.
Prisca Dorcas Mojica Rodríguez was born in Managua, Nicaragua and lives in Nashville, Tennessee. The bulk of her work is around making accessible, through storytelling and curating content, the theories and heavy material that is oftentimes only taught in the racist/classist institutions known as academia. She started the platform Latina Rebels in 2013, and currently has over 300k organic followers online. She has been featured in Telemundo, Univision, Mitú, Huffington Post Latino Voices, Guerrilla Feminism, Latina Mag, Cosmopolitan, Everyday Feminism, and was invited to the White House in the Fall of 2016.
For Brown Girls With Sharp Edges and Tender Hearts is a publication by Seal Press.
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