Educational Media Reviews Online

According to their website, the mission of the Radical Monarchs is to “create opportunities for young girls of color to form fierce sisterhood, celebrate their identities and contribute radically to their communities.” The group’s co-founder Anayvette Martinez writes, “In 2014 my 4th grade daughter desperately wanted to join a young girl’s scouting troop. As she was blooming into a young tween of color, I watched her begin to critically think about and navigate through her identity and radical values. I saw the need for a group that would empower and encourage her to form bonds of sisterhood with other girls in her community. I began to imagine what a radical young girl’s social justice troop looked like; a group that centered and affirmed her experiences as a beautiful and brilliant brown girl against so many societal pressures to conform to mainstream ideals of girlhood.” With friend and co-founder Marilyn Hollinquest, Martinez created the first troop of Radical Monarchs in Oakland, California in December 2014.

We Are the Radical Monarchs follows Martinez and Hollinquest as they lead their troop of third to fifth grade girls through a curriculum that includes units such as Black Lives Matter, Radical Roots, Radical Beauty, Radical Pride, Radical Justice, Radical Bodies (including disability justice issues), and more. Each unit culminates in a badge ceremony, where in addition to the physical emblem of what they’ve learned the girls receive verbal recognition of their work and hugs from the troop leaders. It is a pleasure to watch the girls engaging with these often complex topics and with each other. In the opening scene, they discuss the concepts of LGBTQ+ identity, gender identity and expression, and assigned sex in ways that are age appropriate but also impressively sophisticated and serious. In another scene for the Radical Beauty badge, the girls scrutinize beauty magazines and talk about how they can think critically about the images of women they see therein. In addition to vocabulary and critical thinking, the girls also learn to be supportive of each other -- in one scene when a troop member talks about being teased and begins to cry, the others surround her with a hug -- as well as “real world” life skills such as coding, entrepreneurship, and participating in interviews for a new troop leader. Unfortunately, the film does not spend more time with individual Radical Monarchs or their parents to learn about their reasons for joining the troop or their impressions of it, which would have been welcome.

These scenes of the troop in action are the heart and soul of We Are the Radical Monarchs and make the film worth watching on their own. However, the viewer also gets to see the co-founders navigate the demanding work of organizing and fundraising, creating curricula, and recruiting parents (and their daughters) to a new troop. Both women are passionate educators and advocates for their program and for young women. In an early scene, Ms. Hollinquest tells a group of supporters, “For second graders, social justice is optional, ethnic studies is optional. We need to teach social justice now like we teach STEM subjects.” They struggle to gain stable funding so they can expand the Radical Monarchs and turn management of it from part-time/volunteer work into a full-time/paid program. (The group did succeed in earning a three-year grant in 2017 which allowed them to expand, creating troops in San Francisco, Richmond, and Berkeley, California.) These scenes leave the viewer with a deep appreciation and understanding of the time and commitment that goes into grassroots activism at this level.

Not everyone is equally enthused with the Radical Monarchs and their mission. The film includes some brief excerpts of right-wing media’s (predictable) reactions to a program that foregrounds empowerment of young women of color and social justice issues, but overall, the tone of the film is positive and heartening. This reviewer watched it the day after Election Day 2020 and teared up a few times at a vision of a future where young women are filled with the confidence that their voices and experiences matter, and that they can contribute to a just, equitable society. When we see the troop roam the halls of the California state capitol to meet with assembly members, or speak at a city council meeting about gentrification and renter protections, or talk with a former member of the Black Panther Party about institutional racism and police brutality, we can be forgiven for thinking that things might just turn out all right.

Awards:

Best Documentary, Seattle International Film Festival