Meet Amigoman, The Bilingual Vigilante

Like many kids his age, my nephew is obsessed with superheroes.  With Halloween right around the corner, his current 4-year-old life dilemma is choosing between a Batman or Spiderman costume.  My biggest struggle with him, aside from convincing him to eat his vegetables at dinner, is getting him excited about speaking Spanish.  After coming across the comic book Amigoman, I found something that can satisfy us both.

Antonio Alvarado, aka Amigoman – The Latin Avenger, a mild-mannered History teacher by day and a bilingual vigilante by night in the City of Del Oro.   Alvarado fights crime while helping kids improve their reading and Spanish skills.

The story of Amigoman began when creator Anthony “AO” Oropeza couldn’t find any comics with Latino superheroes at his local book shop.  So he decided to develop one of his own, and gave the main character a background similar to his and the people he knew.  Regarding Amigoman’s origins Oropeza writes:

I wanted my character to be like guys from my neighborhood – blue collar with some the ambition to do something with their life as being one option and then the opposite as the other.

I ultimately would give him an American type of story with a positive twist. Just like many from my neighborhood my character would have a difficult youth but eventually would be set on a path to make himself a better person.

Aware that comics are enjoyed by readers of all ages, Oropeza made an AMIGO-Reading Rating System, creating different levels of stories and plot lines so that  kids and adults could learn from Amigoman’s adventures.

So with my nephew’s penchant for reading the same books over and over again, he can finally pick up some more Spanish words through a positive Latino role model.  And maybe  next year, he’ll want to be Amigoman for Halloween.