Latina American and Caribbean Single Mothers in Anglophone Children’s Picturebooks

Abstract

Picturebooks are the primary source from which children receive initial understandings about family and motherhood. In this article, I discuss verbal and visual tools used in portraying Latina American and Caribbean single mothers in Katherine Leiner and Edel Rodriguez’s Mama Does the Mambo (2001), Monica Gunning and Elaine Pedlar’s A Shelter in Our Car (2004), Jonah Winter and Edel Rodriguez’s Sonia Sotomayor (2009) and Yuyi Morales’s Dreamers (2018). I argue that authors employ a marginalised position of Latinx American and Caribbean characters in Anglophone children’s picturebooks to portray psychologically deep images of single mothers. The illustrators adjust semiotic tools within children’s literature and develop recognizable artistic styles to amplify these issues. White American authors often use foreign cultures as assets to speak on behalf of marginalised groups, importing their own values and stereotypes. Artists and writers develop a toolkit to navigate the perspectives of outsiders and insiders, exploring meaningful topics such as homelessness, immigration, widowhood, poverty, deprivation, grief, and depression. However, authors’ creative representations conform with the existing social institutions and family values, such as a marriage, re-partnering, gendered household chores, and unproblematized relationship with children. While symbolic conventions align with stereotypical expectations, illustrators innovate in colour palettes and artistic techniques, using depictions, interactions, and language integration. Despite constraints, these fictional single mothers exude agency on behavioural, symbolic, and psychological levels.