OAKLAND, Calif., Sept. 12, 2014 /PRNewswire-HISPANIC PR WIRE/ — “What Can Be Done NOW to turn around the crisis preventing Latino educational success?” – will be probed in a live Radio Bilingüe-produced bilingual community forum from Boyle Heights, Los Angeles featuring renowned Latino education scholar Patricia Gándara on Wednesday September 17, 2014 from 11 am to 2 pm PDT. The public is encouraged to attend and comment during the event at Casa 0101 Theater, 2102 E. First St., Los Angeles, CA. The forum will be broadcast live nationwide on the Radio Bilingüe National Latino Public Radio Network and in Los Angeles by partnering Pacifica public radio station KPFK 90.7 FM.

Gándara, co-Director of the Civil Rights Project at UCLA and author of numerous works on Latino education disparities, will be joined on the panel by members of “Los MacArturos” – Latino recipients of the MacArthur Foundation’s prestigious “Genius” Fellowships, kicking off a day of engagement focused on youth and community building in Boyle Heights in partnership with Radio Bilingüe, the Alliance for California Traditional Arts (ACTA), and Centro Binacional para el Desarrollo Indígena Oaxaqueño.

Media may meet the panelists from 10 to 10:45 am PT at the forum venue. “Los MacArturos” expected include artists, writers, scholars and community workers Joan Abrahamson, Luis Alfaro, Ruth Behar, Guillermo Gómez-Peña, Rueben Martínez, Amalia Mesa‐Bains, Hugo Morales, Francisco Núñez, Benjamin “Pepón” Osorio, María Varela, and Camilo J. Vergara. Hosted by veteran journalists Richard Gonzales and Graciela “Chelis” López, forum hours 1&3 will be in English and Hour 2 in Spanish.

Also scheduled in Boyle Heights Sept. 17: a private dialogue between Los MacArturos and invited community members, 4 pm, Boyle Hotel; a public creative lab “ActivARTE” using arts and culture to address neighborhood displacement, 6 pm, Mariachi Plaza; and a performance by MacArturo Guillermo Gómez Peña, 8 pm, Casa 0101 Theater.

The national broadcast is part of Radio Bilingüe’s Diploma en Mano/Diploma in Hand series, supported by The Corporation for Public Broadcasting’s American Graduate – Let’s Make it Happen! Also supporting the day’s events are The California Endowment, Building Healthy Communities – Boyle Heights, and the Los Angeles County Arts Commission.