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  • Lara Saguisag

“Never Forget”: Panel Discussion on Children’s Lit & Historical Revisionism in the Philippines

September 18-24, 2022 is Banned Books Week. Established in 1982 by the American Library Association, Banned Books Week is an annual campaign to raise awareness about the damaging consequences of book challenges, book bans, and other forms of censorship on readers, authors, teachers, and librarians. In their article “As Schools Ban Books by Authors of Color, Young People Pay the Price,” Marilisa Jiménez García and Paige Pagan point to how children’s and young adult books by authors of color have increasingly been the target of book challenges and bans. Jiménez García and Pagan remind us that such acts of censorship not only threaten the livelihoods of creators of color, but also further marginalize BIPOC youth. Books about LGBTQIA+ experiences and/or written by LGBTQIA+ authors continue to be under attack, with conservative lobbyists and lawmakers ramping up efforts to remove LGBTQIA+ titles from schools and public libraries.


Of course, efforts at censorship are not unique to the United States. Earlier this year, government representatives and social media trolls in the Philippines began red-tagging children’s book authors, publishers, and activists who have been documenting the truths about the Martial Law years (1972-1981) and Ferdinand Marcos’s twenty-year regime (1965-1986). Thirty five years after the ouster of the kleptocratic dictator, his son, Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos, Jr., is now the President of the Philippines. The younger Marcos’s victory was powered in part by vigorous disinformation campaigns that recast the Marcos Era as the Golden Age of the Philippines.


What do these attacks and campaigns of falsehood mean for the future of Filipino children’s literature? This urgent question will be at the heart of the virtual panel discussion “‘Never Forget’: Children’s Literature and Historical Revisionism in the Philippines.” The panel is scheduled for


September 21, Wednesday in the Philippines, at 9 AM

September 20, Tuesday in the USA, at 9 PM ET, 6 PM PT

We invite you to join us. Please register for this Zoom event.



This event adds a global perspective to Banned Books Week. It also marks the fiftieth anniversary of the declaration of Martial Law in the Philippines. It will feature Alexine G. Parreño, owner of Pumplepie Books & Happiness; Gabriela Lee, Assistant Professor, University of the Philippines-Diliman; Gigo Alampay, founder and executive director of The Center for Art, New Ventures, and Sustainable Development (CANVAS); and Sandra Nicole Roldan, Assistant Professor, University of the Philippines-Diliman and author of At the School Gate. The panelists will discuss the role of children’s literature in documenting the truths about the Marcos dictatorship, especially in an environment that enables the spread of disinformation and inhibits protest and free speech. They will also offer their thoughts on how readers, educators, and activists in the United States can support the work of Filipinos in the homeland who are combating historical revisionism and state oppression. The event will be moderated by Lara Saguisag, Georgiou Chair in Children’s Literature and Literacy at New York University.


“‘Never Forget’: Children’s Literature and Historical Revisionism in the Philippines” is presented by the Department of Teaching and Learning of New York University Steinhardt, The Constantine Georgiou Library and Resource Center for Children and Literature, and Sulo: The Philippine Studies Initiative @ NYU.



If you would like more information on how you can help Filipino creatives, distributors, and activists, you can start by downloading this handout. It provides background information on the state of Martial Law education in the Philippines, a list of children’s books about the Marcos dictatorship, as well as suggestions on how to stand in solidarity with Filipino authors, publishers, and activists.


Martial Law Miseducation

Martial Law miseducation handout

Martial Law Child Lit.Handout
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