Suburban Mosaic: Buffalo Grove Pride parade returns June 4

The Pinta Pride Project, an LGBTQ+ awareness and support nonprofit, will host its Buffalo Grove Pride Parade and Picnic on June 4.

Since 2019, the free, family-friendly celebration has been held annually during Pride Month to uplift the LGBTQ+ community in the Northwest suburbs. More than 5,000 people attend the festival each year.

The group's goal is to recruit 100 parade participants, raise $50,000 in sponsorships, and welcome 7,000 attendees this year.

“We want every queer person in the Northwest suburbs of Chicago to know they are loved and valued. Their hopes, dreams, and lives are important to us,” said Carolyn Pinta, founder of the Pinta Pride Project. “We are concerned about the increasing mental health crises and suicide rates among LGBTQ+ youth locally. We're angry about nationwide political and cultural attacks attempting to strip away their fundamental rights. We create healthy children and families when the community shows up for one another — we can't do this without you.”

The parade lineup is full, but sponsorship opportunities still are available. There also are ways to host along the parade route.

“The Magic of Pride” parade will kick off at 11 a.m. just south of Twin Creeks Park on Buffalo Grove Road and end on Deerfield Parkway at the entrance to the Fitness Center at the Buffalo Grove Park District. It will feature Grand Marshals Tommy and Scott DeLorenzo, owners of Balloons by Tommy.

The picnic, sponsored by the Buffalo Grove Park District, will follow at Mike Rylko Community Park behind the Fitness Center. It will feature music, food, and fun for the whole family. Register to become a group sponsor at BuffaloGrovePride.com.

LGBTQIA+ people can join the BG Pride Parade Ambassador Program to build connections among queer youth and adults. Students can get internship credits and community service hours for participation. Register at bit.ly/prideparadeambassadors.com.

Native American history

Legislation that would require Illinois public schools to teach lessons on Midwestern Native American history beginning in the 2024-25 school year recently passed the General Assembly and is awaiting Gov. J.B. Pritzker's signature.

The measure would require all public elementary and high school social studies courses that cover American history or government to include instruction on “events of the Native American experience and Native American history within the Midwest and this state.”

This latest legislation expanding history requirements comes on the heels of previous law changes to make the curriculum more inclusive.

In 2021, Illinois became the first state to require Asian American history to be taught in schools. Lawmakers earlier passed requirements for teaching Black history and lessons about the contributions of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people.

Once signed into law, Native American history curriculum will be developed in consultation with members of the Chicago American Indian Community Collaborative. The legislation mandates elementary school students begin learning about Native American history, including their contributions to art and politics. Students in higher grades must learn about the “genocide of and discrimination against Native Americans.”

Latinos in textbooks

An analysis of how Latinos are portrayed in widely used U.S. history textbooks reveals a lack of authenticity and a failure to cover many seminal events in the Latino experience, according to a report by Johns Hopkins University's Institute for Education Policy and UnidosUS, the nation's largest Hispanic nonpartisan civil rights group.

The study found 87% of key topics in Latino history were either not covered in the evaluated books or mentioned in five or fewer sentences. Collectively, the books included only one Hispanic breakthrough moment from the last 200 years: Sonia Sotomayor's appointment to the U.S. Supreme Court.

Latino students represent more than a quarter of the 50.8 million K-12 public school students in the U.S.

Johns Hopkins researchers analyzed five high school U.S. history textbooks and one AP U.S. history book, using a curated rubric developed in partnership with UnidosUS.

Researchers considered how Latinos were depicted, the extent to which each textbook covered the Latino experience, and the degree to which the books balanced discussions of inequality with discussions of Latino contributions to U.S. history. They also evaluated the books' complexity of language and the authenticity of images.

Key findings include:

• Only 28 of 222 important topics were covered well, leaving out many aspects of the Mexican American War, the Spanish-American War, the U.S. acquisition of Puerto Rico, the Panama Canal, the modern civil rights movement, Cold War politics, and legal developments shaping the Latino experience, such as the Voting Rights Act, the Civil Rights Act, and racial segregation.

• Topics covered most fully related to American land purchases from Mexico and foreign policy in Latin America.

Strength in diversity

U.S. Sen. Tammy Duckworth, a Hoffman Estates Democrat, recently helped reintroduce the Strength in Diversity Act on the 69th anniversary of the landmark Brown v. Board of Education U.S. Supreme Court decision.

The legislation promotes diversity in schools through a federal grant program to support voluntary, community-driven strategies. Grants could fund a range of proposals, including:

• Studying segregation, evaluating current policies and developing evidence-based plans to address socioeconomic and racial isolation;

• Revising school boundaries, expanding equitable access to transportation for students, or improving open enrollment processes;

• Creating or expanding school programs that can attract students from outside the local area;

• Recruiting, hiring and training new teachers and improving teacher diversity;

• Supporting the development and maintenance of best practices.

“No child should ever be denied equal resources, protections and opportunities to achieve their American dream — not in schools, not anywhere,” Duckworth said in a news release.

Halal festival

The Illinois Muslim Chamber of Commerce will host the Naperville Halal Fest on Aug. 5.

The festival will run from noon to 9 p.m. at Frontier Park, 3380 Cedar Glade Drive, Naperville. It is a celebration of the rich cultural diversity of the Muslim world experienced through halal food, traditional clothing, music, cultural performances, and children's activities.

For more details, visit the chamber's Facebook page, facebook.com/ILMuslimChamber, or Instagram, instagram.com/ilmuslimchamber/.

• Share stories, news and happenings from the suburban mosaic at mkrishnamurthy@dailyherald.com.