Meet Jyoti.
Educator, author, founder.
I create and analyze media that make children and adults culturally visible across educational resources, learning environments, and everyday conversations.
When aspects of our identities—such as physical appearance, language, or cultural background—are treated as different or Other, it often shapes how people perceive, include, or exclude us. By changing the way we teach, communicate, design, and create educational materials, we can build more thoughtful, respectful, and joyful learning environments in our homes, schools, media, and communities.
I invite educators, media-makers, and organizations to challenge practices that ignore, normalize, perpetuate, or exploit harmful social beliefs that affect children and youth. Let’s change this by creating teaching tools and environments where we can think critically about cultural literacy and children’s emotional well-being.
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Make art for literacy!
Access a free anti-bias, skin color-related activity for your class, art room, library, or home? Link below.
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I am available for speaking engagements at youth organizations, schools, and higher ed campuses.
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Are you an upstander!
Help grow the cultural visibility community. Amplify my work and introduce me to co-conspirators.
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I am an Indian-born, New York–based scholar-practitioner, writer, and educator focused on engaging children, youth, and their grown-ups in discourse around cultural visibility.
My forthcoming children’s book, Yesterday Nexterday, draws from critical pedagogy, media literacy, and multicultural education. Its curriculum utilizes play, art-and-craft, and participatory dialogue to create dynamic learning environments where children actively interpret, repurpose, and participate in culture-making. My first children’s book, Different Differenter: An Activity Book about Skin Color (2019), has been included as an educational resource by The New York Times Wirecutter, Rethinking Schools, Social Justice Books, and McGraw Hill Wonders.
I am the founder of The Colo(u)rism Project (2012), an independent initiative that has expanded into an inquiry into childhood and identity formation. I have facilitated workshops and public conversations in schools, universities, museums, literary and cultural forums, including at TEDxWomen and the Jaipur Literature Festival. My work and commentary have appeared in Bitch! Media, The Washington Post, The Juggernaut, and Radio Free Brooklyn. I received an Individual Artists Grant from Houston Arts Alliance for Putting the U in Color, a month-long exhibit examining colorism within South Asian communities.
My professional experience spans visual communication, nonprofit leadership, and consulting, including The Economic Times, J. Walter Thompson, Asia Society Texas Center, and TiE Houston, where I served as Executive Director. I hold master’s degrees in Media Studies and Liberal Studies from The New School and CUNY Graduate Center, respectively, and a BFA in Applied Art (Visual Communication) from Delhi College of Art. I live in Washington Heights with my teenage son, who enjoys flute, writing, and designing aerospace video-game things.
Dixon, A. R., & Telles, E. E. (2017). Skin color and colorism: Global research, concepts, and measurement. Annual Review of Sociology, 43(1), 405–424. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-soc-060116-053315
Love, B. L. (2019). We want to do more than survive: Abolitionist teaching and the pursuit of educational freedom. Beacon Press.