Secondary Readings- LOTS to Think About!


I have a lot of conflicting feelings about multicultural representations. None of these feelings mean that I don't 100% believe of the importance of these titles
in our collections. I have spent a lot of time in the past year working to add multicultural titles in my library. 

Here is where I am conflicted. There is just SO much to learn. When I think I am on the right track, I read (Gangi, 2008) about Oyate's "Books to Avoid". In my natural curiosity, I look this up and learn that most of the titles in my collection related to Thanksgiving are on Oyate's list of NOT RECOMMENDED books about Thanksgiving. Now, I can blame this on the fact that I have only been the media coordinator for two years. But, did I know this? No. 

I want students in my population to see books that represent them! I was fortunate enough to be accepted for two Donors Choose grants last year that
completely were devoted to adding multicultural titles. I also spent a large part of my budget adding these titles to the collection. It was fun looking over the picture books and chapter books that my peers highlighted this week. I was proud to see that most of them were added to my collection last year. 

In a class this past summer, I learned about white privilege. This again let me know that I have a lot to learn. I am guessing that I often have looked at books/selections through white privilege in the fact that I haven't ever had to think about myself being represented in books that I read. Again, a lot to learn. 

I took a class when teaching in Atlanta Public Schools, I taught in inner city Atlanta in which I was the only white PERSON in a school for two years, called African American Infusion. What a valuable class, especially for someone like me in which  students came in my classroom to "look" at me daily. This class was my first experience with feeling the need and urge to have my students represented in my book collection. 

It was interesting to think about what (Gangi, 2008) stated when talking about Scholastic orders and book fairs. They do have a lot of influence as to what our students see. My book fair begins later this week and it is certainly something I will be taking note of. The article states that Scholastic has many multicultural titles, but these are not the ones that end up in book fairs. I do think this has improved since this article was written in 2008, but I will be looking! 

Using books as mentor texts and during core instruction (Warsinke, 2014), I hadn't thought about this so much when choosing texts. Choosing books with multicultural characters was not foremost in my mind. This is something that I would like to point out to my teachers. When making text to text connections, can students all make those connections when they can't connect with the characters? 

Back to Ms. Marvel, I do see how relevant this book is for teen readers (Berlatsky, 2014). Even though the book is fantasy, this character is so relatable for many of its readers. Does becoming blonde and Caucasion make Kamala happy? No. She thought having the hair, the boots, the other stereotypical things would be wonderful. This superhero goes through what our everyday teen goes through. 

Some of the representations in books are due to restrictions that publishers put on books. When listening to Matt de la Pena, he read his newest book

Love. It's a gorgeous book which portrays a Hispanic family. The book has a page in which a child is hiding
under the piano as the parents talk. The picture indicates that the parents are arguing. Barnes and Noble (he didn't say the name of the store, but something he said alluded that it was B & N) would not carry the book if he kept that page in the book. de la pena would not budge. He felt that the page was very relevant for the book to be authentic. Needless to say, the book has the page. I checked as writing, B & N now carries the book. Ha!

Here is where I am conflicted as well, or I guess a better way to put it would be helping my teachers understand about multicultural titles. These books are not titles to be highlighted, meaning books standing alone. These titles need to be in the general population of books. Maybe this is something I will learn to feel differently about as this class progresses. As a child looks for books, it should be easy to see titles that reflect that child. My goal is to continue making this happen in my library. 

Comments

  1. Dr. MoeSeptember 11, 2019 at 12:18 PM

    Thanks Cheryl. I think your goal and continued self-education are wonderful, wonderful things. Not all professionals who work with and serve people not like themselves are willing to engage in such a thoughtful journey. A journey it is though. Your experience as a person who identifies as you do is miles away from another person who identifies differently. All we can do is work toward a better understanding of what other people's lived experiences are and, as librarians, try to ensure that we represent that in our collections and services. I don't think we're ever "done" with that journey, which, to me, is a good thing, as long as we're willing to embrace it.

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