“When I see footage of the Young Lords… I mean, they were like children. With regards to the Young Lords, Manzano did a lot of research on the group in order to honor their story in hers. “She’s quite sexy and flamboyant… and if anybody makes a movie of it, I’m playing her,” she declared. She added that because The Revolution of Evelyn Serrano is a young adult book, her real description of the fictional grandmother was cleaned up quite a bit. “When she gets home that day, she’s met with this flamboyant abuela – who has red hair, wears a longline bra, had penciled-in eyebrows,” Manzano describes, sprouting some chuckles from the crowd. On her main character Evelyn, the actress said the teen “sees nothing in the outside world for her.” In between reading passages, Manzano sprinkled in her own commentary. The act was all to protest one of the greatest issues in East Harlem at the time – the turtle pace of the city in picking up garbage in the upper Manhattan neighborhood in comparison to others.
Manzano shared the first chapter (which introduced Evelyn) and a later chapter, which detailed the Young Lords’ famous “garbage offensive” – when they stacked uncollected garbage in East Harlem and burned it in the streets, blocking major roads. After all, she’s a pro.įurrowed eyebrows and all, Sonia Manzano entertained the crowd this past Sunday as she read her new book. Manzano’s reading was filled with lilts in her voice and superb facial expressions and, though she was reading to mostly older adults, the giggles erupting from a chunk of them told otherwise. “Kids should know that Latin people live in America – because we were so invisible,” she added. This was part of a curriculum goal, she said. Interestingly enough, 1969 was the same year that Manzano was cast in Sesame Street. “Everybody was marching – everybody was protesting… everybody had a platform,” she said, “… and finally, because of the Young Lords, they gave us a platform here in El Barrio.” This was important because, Manzano said, “we were not in the news.” In her new book, the 62-year-old said she wanted to write about the excited rumble that transpired in 1969. From behind her chic glasses, the actress spoke to the crowded audience about the inspiration behind the book.
After being introduced by La Casa Azul’s founder Aurora Anaya-Cerda, Manzano sat on a mahogany stool, and brought with her a mega-watt smile.
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