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Embracing Multiple Cultures: Hispanic Heritage Month
Latina author, publisher, educator and entrepreneur encourages everyone to embrace Hispanic Heritage Month, no matter your race or ethnicity.
When Nury Castillo Crawford sought a publisher for her children’s book based on her life immigrating from Peru to the United States, she realized that her vision wasn’t met with open arms. Like many industries, publishing is dominated by White males.
Many book publishers utilize a formula or algorithm for predicting successful sales. Even though in the last few decades, books that didn’t necessarily fit the old standards have been huge blockbusters, many companies aren’t willing to take the risk.
“When I was ready to release my book, I had some interest because at that time there was a lot of chatter around immigration and immigrant status,” she said referring to then-presidential candidate Donald Trump’s push for tougher immigration laws.
But there was no assurance that she’d have much control over the final product. “I couldn’t get any guarantees that the title would stay the same. And the title was actually personal for me,” she said. “The characters [might not stay] as I imagined them to be because the story was based on my journey as an immigrant, and they didn’t know why I needed the girl and the mom, etcetera, to be brown. I didn’t need them to be lightened up. Some of those things were very important to me. I needed the book to be bilingual and they told me that bilingual didn’t sell.”
Faith and conviction lead to a publishing business
It was a hard decision for Crawford to make — compromise her standards or take a chance that the book deal wouldn’t happen. After much soul-searching, she decided to step out on faith.
“I was like, well I’m not changing it because it doesn’t fit your box,” said Crawford. “And I pretty much resolved to myself that even if I sell not one copy, at least this will be a little bit of a biography for years to come. So when I die, my great-great-grandkids could still look at the book and be like, ‘Oh this is the journey of my family coming to this country.’”
1010 Publishing was founded as a result of her wanting to get a book published but being unwilling to sacrifice her values and her story.
That was more than five years ago and Crawford, who is also director of Academic Support for Gwinnett County Public Schools and the president of the Georgia Association of Latino Administrators and Superintendents, has published several books since — those she’s written and those of other authors.
Her vision for the company is to focus on multilingualism. She started out with Spanish and branched out to other languages such as traditional Chinese, Korean, Vietnamese and French.
Respecting and celebrating our variety of heritages
Crawford’s heritage is important to her, and she prides herself on being American as well as Peruvian. As Hispanic Heritage Month approaches, she encourages everyone to embrace their roots, but also be open to learning about others.
Asian populations are the fastest growing minority group in the United States, but Hispanics have been the largest minority group in the country for about 20 years — and the numbers continue to grow. There are census predictions that by 2025, 25% of children in this country will have Latinx roots. “Just like any other community, we need to be not only very diligent and committed to ensuring that we are being represented, but we need to hold onto our heritage,” Crawford said.
A friend who had immigrated from Venezuela had told a story of her daughter who was reluctant to speak Spanish at school. She didn’t want to be singled out as different, even though there is a pretty significant population of Hispanic children there. Pop singer Justin Bieber had released a Spanish-language version of his hit song, Despacito, and several students were trying to sing the lyrics. The girl’s family mainly spoke Spanish at home and her command of the language was perfect. She helped her friends with the lyrics, and they were amazed at how “smart” she was.
Although she shouldn’t need a popular song to boost her self-esteem about who she is, Crawford said those types of stories are commonplace. “We need our culture to be embraced by all of our leaders in every aspect, in every in every venue of our community, because research tells us that when people feel seen, heard and respected, you’re going to get the sense of community that you’re looking for,” she said. “Until people feel like they’re genuinely part of the [community], there is no real unity.”
Jordan House, K-12 Chapel Leader at Greater Atlanta Christian School agreed that it is important to highlight other cultures as part of education.
“God created humans in His image, and the fact that He created us with different characteristics represents His creativity and desire to have different aspects of His image shown,” he said. “Helping gain awareness of culture, appreciating it, celebrating it, pointing to God as the creator [is an important part of education]. In years past, we’ve done a tour of countries and highlighted many aspects that are unique and beautiful.”
He added that Hispanic Heritage Month is another way to teach God’s love. “From my viewpoint, the goal is to educate, gain awareness, gain appreciation, celebrate and honor specifically Hispanic culture. If we honor God by honoring His beautiful creation, then we’ve done our job!” he said.
Goals of equality and literacy
Crawford said the challenge of putting everyone — not just minorities — on a parity with the status quo isn’t unique to Gwinnett County but does seem to be slow to overcome. “I feel like the change that we desperately need to see is not going to come forward as fast as we need to see it,” she said. “And that makes a lot of sense, you know in comparison to how African Americans have been a significant part of the United States population for a long time, but it was just a year ago that Juneteenth was recognized as a national holiday.”
She pointed to states like California, Florida and Texas where many Latinx families have lived for several generations. They are business owners, government officials and citizens who are very active in how the community is run.
“Many of the Hispanic and Latino families in Georgia are first or second generation,” Crawford said. “And most of them are not proficient in English. The majority of them are learning and there are different levels of acquisition of language.”
That’s kind of where Crawford’s latest endeavor comes in. Earlier this year, she opened THE little BOOK SPOT, a multilingual bookstore with a focus on diversity — diversity in ability, language, culture, ethnicity and race — in the Plaza Las Americas, perhaps the largest Hispanic-focused mall in the area. Currently the hours of operation are noon to 7 p.m. on Saturday and Sunday. Find out more at thelittlebookspot.godaddysites.com.
“One of the things that popped in my brain as I was talking to other Latino leaders was that when you go to a regular American mall… there’s always a bookstore inside it or nearby. It’s the opposite for our malls where mostly Latino people frequent,” she said.
So Crawford made it a goal to increase literacy, especially in the Latino community. Although she mainly writes children’s books, the store has something for everyone.
“I think we all need to be engaged and involved in learning and not leaving it up to somebody else. We should all try to be inclusive within our own lives,” she said.
The titles in her store run the gamut and don’t just focus on Latino and Hispanic cultures.
“If you can’t name one friend from another culture, that’s a problem to me,” she said. “We should all do our best to try to learn about other people.”
And one of the best places to start is inside a book.
Books by Nury Castillo Crawford
- 3,585 Miles to be an American Girl (ages 4-7) — English and Spanish
- Sofia and Vivi: A Bilingual Children’s Book: Big Sister — English and Spanish
- Women Who Lead Featuring Latina Leaders: Featuring Nury Castillo Crawford — English and Spanish
- Marisol — English and Spanish
- Hispanic Mentoring: A quick guide to jump start your own mentoring program
- Plant the Seed Well… Expect Wonders: A Parent’s Guide to making sense of parenting in the 21st century — English and Spanish
- A Long Journey to Safety — English and Vietnamese
- What is going on in the World? — English and Spanish
- I Love You No Matter What — English, Korean and traditional Chinese
Annual multi-genre convention celebrating Japanese anime, American animation, comics and gaming sets new record with 59,222 attendees
— Article updated May 29, 2025
Atlanta welcomed nearly 60,000 fans of cosplay, comics, gaming, anime and music over the four-day Memorial Day weekend — all meeting up at the Georgia World Congress Center to celebrate MomoCon 2025 and its 20th year in the city.
One of the fastest growing, all-ages conventions in the country, this year’s numbers topped the 56,000 guests that attended in 2024, and was estimated by the Atlanta Convention & Visitors Bureau to have a $42.2 million impact on the metro area.
Equally important, the buzzing enthusiasm and pure joy of the weekend, from both attendees and featured guests, was unmatched. Everyone seemed to be having an incredible time. And plans are already in the works for an even more impressive — and expanded — MomoCon experience in 2026.
Organizers say they are expanding into both Hall A and Hall B next year, increasing the total space to a massive 1,045,178 square feet for exhibits and gaming. The team is already hard at work planning amazing new guests and activities for MomoCon’s 21st year.
Registration for next year’s event is already open, with early-bird discounts for fans who want to lock their passes in early.
Giving back to the community
In addition to the money brought into the city and to the convention itself, MomoCon chooses a charity each year in which to support with donations. Funds are raised through sales of specialty merchandise and custom events that have donation elements built in.
The 2025 official charity was the Johnson STEM Activity Center. MomoCon raised more than $5,000 for the center and contributed an additional $7,500 in matching funds, bringing the total donation to $12,500. MomoCon organizers also worked with 11 Atlanta-area, youth-serving nonprofits to give back by bringing more than 900 kids in need to the convention.
Nonprofits receiving tickets this year included Scouting America, Horizons Atlanta, ReImagine ATL, the New Media Education Foundation of Georgia, Purpose Possible, Lekotek, Focus, Boys & Girls Clubs of Metro Atlanta, Big Brothers Big Sisters of Atlanta, Wellroot Family Services and the YMCA.
Fan-favorite comic book artists
Comic book artists (and original members of the former Atlanta-based Gaijin Studios), Cully Hamner and Brian Stelfreeze made their first appearances at MomoCon this year, invited to attend and show off their work in the Artist Alley.
Fans lined up to meet them, along with fellow award-winning artist and longtime friend, Wade von Grawbadger, to get photos, autographs and artwork and spend a few minutes chatting with the guys.
Hamner talked briefly about an upcoming project, “Ruby Actual” that he’s doing with Greg Rucka. “Not sure when it will come out,” he said, “But we’re hoping first quarter 2026.”
In the meantime, comic fans can continue to enjoy his previous work — the acclaimed, creator-owned RED (which was adapted into two films), the current Blue Beetle (also adapted to film) and all of the other work he’s done for DC, Marvel and other publishers over the last 30 years.
They can also look forward to his return to MomoCon in the future if schedules work out.
“This has been a lot of fun,” Hamner said on Sunday, the last day of the convention. “I’d love to come back if they invite me again.”
Stelfreeze agreed. “I enjoyed [MomoCon],” he said. “I really liked seeing the younger audience.”
That definitely seemed true on Sunday, as the crowds had thinned out some and Stelfreeze had more time to hang out and talk with people who stopped by the Essential Sequential booth. With some fans, he spent ten minutes or more discussing art, comics and other topics, and even came out from behind the table at times to meet people and say hi to old friends.
Featured guests
Other featured guests also drew long lines of fans who were eager to meet their favorite creators.
Darryl McDaniels (from RunDMC and now a comic book and children’s book author), Greg Burnham (Norcross-based comic book writer known for his indie comic hits), Reed Shannon and Mick Wingert (voice actors and stars of Netflix’s “Arcane”), Ryō Horikawa (Japanese voice of Vegeta in “Dragon Ball Z”), veteran voice actor and producer, Chris Sabat, and online personalities such as Damien Haas were just a few of the standouts.
In fact, as the convention was winding down on Sunday afternoon, Haas’ fan line was still so long, the crowd filled multiple rows of the cordoned-off autograph area, both inside and outside of his designated line.
A full list of 2025 celebrity guests can be found here.
New for 2025
While most of the fun features of MomoCon 2025 were returning favorites — Artist Alley, Exhibitor’s Hall, panels, movie screenings and the cosplay showcase —convention organizers kept things fresh with a new theme (‘90s Retro) and a few new highlights, including a skating rink, an expanded online gaming area and the return of the“Bring Your Own Computer” space.
Workshops on everything from miniature painting and D&D to Gunpla modeling, as well as live performances and a massive vendor area and fan car showcase rounded out the exciting weekend.
Though tired from a whirlwind weekend of geek culture camaraderie and large (but super friendly) crowds, we can’t wait to see what MomoCon has in store for 2026.
For more about MomoCon, visit momocon.com.
More moments from 2025; photos courtesy of MomoCon
“Geek Culture” Shines at 2025 MomoCon
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