¡Si, Se Puede! / Yes, We Can!: Janitor Strike in L.A. (PB)

By Diana Cohn

¡Sí, Se Puede! / Yes, We Can! is a bilingual fictional story set against the backdrop of the successful janitors’ strike in Los Angeles in 2000. It tells about Carlitos, whose mother is a janitor. Every night, he sleeps while his mother cleans in one of the skyscrapers in downtown L.A. When she comes home, she waves Carlitos off to school before she goes to sleep. One night, his mamá explains that she can’t make enough money to support him and his abuelita the way they need unless she makes more money as a janitor. She and the other janitors have decided to go on strike.
How will Carlitos support his mother? Carlitos wants to help but he cannot think of a way until his teacher, Miss Lopez, explains in class how her own grandfather had fought for better wages for farmworkers when he first came to the United States. He and the other children in his class join the marchers with a very special sign for his mom!
¡Sí, Se Puede! is a Jane Addams Peace Award Honor Book, a Skipping Stones Honor Book, as well as a selection for The Best of Beyond Difference, a recommended list of the top 10 diversity books published in 2002.
Diana Cohn, the author, is a social activist. As an elementary teacher, she discovered there were few books for children that discussed social issues, so she began to write as an avocation. She now works as Program Director for the Solidago Foundation, a foundation that supports communities working for economic and environmental justice. She lives on a houseboat in Sausalito, California.
Francisco Delgado, the illustrator, grew up in Juárez, Chihuahua, but completed high school in El Paso, Texas. He will -receive his MFA at Yale in Painting, Drawing, and Printmaking in May 2002. Francisco is becoming known nationally for his political paintings that satirize U.S. icons blind to the mestizo and immigrant communities of Mexico. He lives in New Haven, Connecticut. Luis J. Rodriguez (Always Running) adds the afterword and a poem.

La mamá de Carlitos es conserje. Cada noche mientras el duerme su mamá limpia un edificio en el centro de L.A. Una noche su mamá le explica que al menos de que ganara mas como conserje, no gana suficiente dinero para mantenerlo a el y a su abuelita como ella quisiera. Ella y los otros conserjes han decidido entrar en huelga. ¿Acaso el la apoyará y ayudará en todo lo que pueda? Claro, Carlitos quiere ayudar, pero no sabe como hasta que ve a su mamá en la televisión dando un discurso en favor de la huelga. Al fina, Carlitos encuentra la manera de enseñarle a su mamá lo orgulloso que esta de ella. ¡El y su compañeros de clase hacen carteles y Carlitos se une a la marcha con un cartel muy especial para su mamá!
¡Si, se puede! Incluye un ensayo escrito por el aclamado autor Luis J. Rodríguez sobre Dolores Sánchez, una de las mujeres involucradas el Paro de Conserjes de L.A. El libro también incluye un póster con un poema de Rodríguez e información sobre las uniones dirigido a los grados 4-6.