Zetta Elliott's Blog, page 44
July 31, 2015
A Wave Came Through Our Window
This morning I received the greatest gift—13 stunning illustrations by Charity Russell for my forthcoming picture book. I thought I’d share a few pages to whet your appetite:
Last night a wave came through our window.
Not a splashing, salty wave.
Not a greedy, hungry wave that tugs at your ankles as you run up the beach.
It was a different kind of wave…
In the summer, we sleep with the windows open WIDE.
It gets real hot in our apartment, so Benny and I sleep in our underwear.
Papa tells us to lie still, but hot nights make you feel itchy inside.
Benny and I toss and turn.
We kick off the sheets and slide our hands under our pillows
’cause that’s where the cool is at.
The air in our bedroom feels warm and thick like Grandma’s split pea soup.
The fan on our dresser turns and churns the air but doesn’t cool the room at all.
Benny and I hold our hands up high and wait for the first wave to come through our window.
Sometimes it comes right away. Sometimes we have to wait.
I spread my fingers wide apart and look out at the moon.
It is bright and round like a big white zero in the middle of the dark blue sky.
Benny’s arms aren’t as strong as mine.
She gets tired of waiting and starts to whine. “When’s the wave going to come?”
“Shhh,” I tell her. “It’s coming now. I can feel it.”
July 30, 2015
hope & a token
My friend Stefanie once said, “Hope and a token will get you on the train.” She denies it now, but I continue to attribute this pearl of wisdom to her because her people are from down south and it’s the kind of folk wisdom her grandmother might have passed along. I come back to it again and again because hope has its place in our lives, but ultimately it takes action to make things happen. I’m not going to stand outside the turnstiles with my fingers crossed, nor am I going to beg a swipe from another commuter. I have thirteen unpublished picture book manuscripts and I realized recently that I cannot publish all of them on my own. So what’s a girl to do? Well, last week I looked up agents who say they’re seeking diverse picture books and sent out a few queries. But agents can take forever to respond—if they respond at all—so I also reached out to a few editors. I’m not optimistic because I’ve been down this path before, but there’s no point in NOT trying. We need multiple strategies to tackle the lack of diversity in children’s publishing, and I will need help if I want to clear this backlog of manuscripts. I could self-publish the autism picture book story I wrote last weekend, Benny Doesn’t Like to Be Hugged, or I could take a couple of months and see if any presses are interested. Patience isn’t a strength of mine, but persistence is…
Last weekend I met a friend uptown to see the Classical Theater of Harlem’s production of The Tempest. It was magical! So well done, and it was actually fun to block out the regular noises of the city in order to focus on the actors’ words. I attended a high school in Toronto where students were required to read a Shakespeare play every year. Then we’d get on buses and trek up to Stratford, Ontario to attend the Shakespeare festival held at the Globe. The play we saw almost never corresponded with the play we studied, but I guess it was still “a positive cultural experience.” When I was in college, I spent a semester abroad in England; as soon as I arrived, I was urged to go into town to see a production of The Tempest that was being held in Arundel Castle. That was the first time I saw Black actors performing Shakespeare! Caliban was Black, of course, but so was the prince Ferdinand (Miranda was white). That semester abroad didn’t live up to its auspicious beginning, and I haven’t really bothered with Shakespeare since then. But I really wanted to see this Harlem production with its incorporation of accents and actors from throughout the African diaspora. Ariel was probably my favorite—she sang and howled and enchanted the shipwrecked sailors, sometimes while suspended above the stage. And Prospero was fantastic, too. Not the ideal father but he understood that sometimes you have to trouble the water to get things done…
July 24, 2015
Surviving Santiago
I’m not a romantic, but when an author mixes love and politics—I’m in! I recently finished reading Lyn Miller-Lachmann’s latest YA novel, Surviving Santiago, and was intrigued by the central role played by the protagonist’s lesbian aunt. For a more comprehensive review of the novel, check out Cindy L. Rodriguez’s write-up over at Latin@s in Kid Lit. For more on the role of LGBTQ people in political movements, read on!
ME: In this companion to Gringolandia, we see a shift in perspective. Tina is now telling the story, and since her mother has remarried a gringo back in Wisconsin, the only female figure in Tina’s life is her father’s sister Ileana. Can you explain your decision to use Ileana as an opportunity to critique patriarchal norms in Chile as well as homophobia? Tina’s father is a radical political activist who has devolved into a barely functional alcoholic after being tortured by the Pinochet regime. He is almost entirely dependent upon his sister and yet openly expresses contempt for her as a lesbian. What, if any, statement were you trying to make about the role of women and LGBTQ people in leftist movements–and in families?
LYN: Thank you for your thoughtful question about Tía Ileana, Zetta! I’ve written about the Chicana civil rights movement, in which LGBTQ people played a major role in confronting patriarchy and homophobia, and in reinterpreting various myths, such as La Malinche, that justified the subjugation of women. Chile’s history and traditions are somewhat different from Mexico’s, but the society is still a patriarchal one with many contradictions. For instance, many women have long worked outside the home, more so than in other Latin American countries, but they return to the “second shift.” Poor, immigrant, and indigenous women are frequently employed as domestic workers, leaving their own families behind to care for the homes and children of well-to-do Chileans. And while Chile was one of the first countries in Latin America to elect a female president, it has some of the harshest anti-abortion laws and lags behind several of its neighbors in granting rights to LGBTQ people.
Tía Ileana embodies some of these contradictions. Like many Chilean women who work outside the home, she returns to the second shift of housework and caretaking. While politically progressive, she works for a real estate developer in the neoliberal economy imposed by the Pinochet regime and its U.S.-based consultants. And she assumes the traditional role taking care of her disabled younger brother, a role that typically falls to unmarried family members because of the lack of social services, while maintaining her relationship with her partner, Berta.
Living with these contradictions takes an emotional toll on Tía Ileana. At first, Tina is unaware of her aunt’s struggle because she is so focused on her own sacrifice, having to spend her summer in Chile with her estranged father. Gradually, though, Tina comes to see her aunt as a mentor and to empathize with her. She learns that she can be true to herself while loving her father despite his flaws and without expecting that he’ll change.
In the context of a leftist movement, the significance of Tía Ileana’s—and Tina’s—unconditional love is this: Being involved in a progressive movement is hard. You’re fighting against those who have nearly all the power and resources, and in the case of the dictatorship, a willingness to use torture, disappearance, and murder to crush their opponents. It’s easy to give up or walk away. My characters’ (particularly Tía Ileana’s) refusal to give up on the people closest to them parallels their refusal to give up on their country. Ultimately, too, they need each other to survive.
In contrast to the violent beginning of the Pinochet dictatorship—a violence aided and abetted by the United States—the end of that dictatorship was accomplished through peaceful means. Pinochet lost the 1988 plebiscite despite his control of the media and the rules of the election. His opponents engaged in dialogue with people who had initially supported the coup and with those too frightened to speak out. Tía Ileana embodies the possibilities that come from reaching out to people who do not understand, a lesson that Tina absorbs as well. Just as the people of Chile had the courage to bring down the dictatorship through peaceful means, Surviving Santiago ends with the hope that Tina’s father will one day change his attitude toward LGBTQ people because of the courage, persistence, and generosity of those around him.
Lyn Miller-Lachmann is the author of the young adult novel Gringolandia (Curbstone Press/Northwestern University Press, 2009), about a teenage refugee from Chile coming to terms with his father’s imprisonment and torture under the Pinochet dictatorship. Gringolandia was a 2010 ALA Best Book for Young Adults and received an Américas Award Honorable Mention from the Consortium of Latin American Studies Programs, among many other accolades. Her second YA novel Rogue (Penguin/Nancy Paulsen Books, 2013), a Junior Library Guild selection, portrays an eighth grader with undiagnosed Asperger’s syndrome and an X-Men obsession, whose effort to befriend another outcast after being expelled from school leads her to some difficult and dangerous choices. Her latest novel is Surviving Santiago (Running Press, 2015), the companion to Gringolandia where younger sister Tina, now 16, travels to Chile at the end of the dictatorship in 1989 to visited her estranged father, and ignored by him, ends up falling in love with a mysterious local boy.
Lyn served as Editor-in-Chief for the quarterly journal MultiCultural Review for 16 years and has remained active in encouraging and promoting diversity in books for children and teens. She is a summer 2012 graduate of the Writing for Children & Young Adults program at Vermont College of Fine Arts and reviews children’s and young adult books on social justice themes for The Pirate Tree (www.thepiratetree.com). Lyn has lived in Portugal and speaks Spanish and Portuguese. Her debut translation from Portuguese, the picture book The World in a Second by Isabel Minhós Martins and Bernardo P. Carvalho, was published by Enchanted Lion in 2015. She blogs about writing, travel, culture, and LEGO at www.lynmillerlachmann.com.
July 16, 2015
race & representation in Asian American kid lit
I talked to a couple of people about it but felt it wasn’t my place to raise the issue. I support an artist’s right to write about whatever s/he likes, but if this was happening to this extent within the small community of Black authors and illustrators, I’d be taking names! Seriously. Kids of color are desperate to see themselves in books and I feel most artists in my community feel an obligation to provide those “mirrors.” It’s also a matter of self-determination/self-definition; we want to control the narratives and images our children consume. This is especially important when there are so many books about but not by Blacks, and popular culture is rife with racist stereotypes. In the Black community, we know the toll this takes on our kids; the misrepresentation of Black people fuels misperceptions that diminish self-esteem and can even cost a Black child her or his life.
But let me be honest—my interest in the comparative CCBC stats is not unrelated to my investment and participation in the kid lit diversity debate. I’ve had several conversations with Black women who feel excluded from the We Need Diverse Books movement, and Jessica Williams’ recent “ helper whitey ” skit perfectly illustrates how Black women routinely have their ideas dismissed by those who perceive them as “too angry.” At times, coalition building between Blacks and Asians here in the US has been hindered by the “model minority” myth coupled with anti-Black racism (though there are notable exceptions and the UK has a very different history). I’ve written about my own need to “ decolonize my imagination ” after growing up Black in a “former” British colony, and Sona Charaipotra and Dhonielle Clayton have developed a theory about “ cultural Stockholm syndrome .” All in all, this seems like a good moment to explore the challenges different marginalized groups face when representing race for young readers. To better understand the particular perspective of Asian American kid lit creators, I invited several people to join this virtual roundtable: Sarah Park Dahlen , Shveta Thakrar , Sona Charaipotra , Mike Jung , and Katie Yamasaki . I am hoping that this will be the first in a series of conversations about race and representation in children’s literature.
***
Me: What is your response to the CCBC stats on books by, about, by but not about Asian/Pacific Americans? Is the need for “mirror books” perceived as less urgent in the Asian American community? Do commercial considerations take priority or are authors/illustrators pressured to write outside their race?
***
Sarah: I was surprised and not surprised to see the rate at which we write outside our race. From my personal experience, I was raised to be proud of being Korean American, but my culture (and its absence in the media, popular culture, etc.) was not something I was encouraged to think about critically. When I decided to major in Asian American Studies, my parents wondered why I was doing something no one would be interested in, something that wasn’t attractive to a future employer. It didn’t fit with their idea of American Dream = lawyer/doctor/professor/engineer. So I don’t think we’re necessarily pressured to write outside our race, but we’re not often encouraged to write inside our race.
No author wants to be labeled solely as an “Asian American author” or an “African American author.” And truly, Asian Americans and people of all identities should tell whatever story they want to tell, but should consider what stories are left untold if we don’t tell our own stories, and what the stakes are if others tell our stories. An example of someone who writes well across experiences is Linda Sue Park – When My Name was Keoko (Japanese colonialism in Korea), Project Mulberry (contemporary novel that addresses race issues), and A Long Walk to Water (about a Sudanese Lost Boy and access to clean water). And often it’s complicated – in Half a World Away Cynthia Kadohata tells the story of a boy named Jaden who was adopted from Romania, and then accompanies his American parents to Kazakhstan to adopt another child. She herself is an adoptive mother to a child born in Kazakhstan, and the story is told from the perspective of the child adopted from Romania, so she is writing inside or outside her experience?
Similarly, outsiders who write Asian American stories should consider what stake they have in telling our stories, whose voices they might be silencing in that telling, and whether or not they are the best person to tell that story. Gene Luen Yang, Allen Say, and Laurence Yep have made tremendous contributions to Asian American children’s and YA literature as insider authors, and in some sense they tell stories as outsiders when we consider their historical works (Boxers & Saints, the Golden Mountain Chronicles, etc), yet by and large we consider them insiders telling our stories. And there remain many stories that are untold, that should be told, if someone can do right by the story. A great example here is Joanne Oppenheim’s Dear Miss Breed: True Stories of the Japanese American Incarceration During World War II and a Librarian Who Made a Difference.
Asian American authors writing about more non-Asian American topics may also be a function of the “don’t make waves” perspective that haunts our communities. After 120,000 Japanese Americans were interned during World War II, upon their release few Japanese Americans spoke out against the injustices they suffered and appeared to quietly assimilate, which led one reporter to call them the “model minority” (which is a hugely problematic myth). Decades later, people began to share their internment stories so we could learn about this ugly part of American history. Similarly, Koreans didn’t talk about the shame and trauma of Japanese colonialism, especially to their American children, until decades later. Despite growing up surrounded by Koreans, I didn’t learn about colonialism until college.The good news is that today we have multiple books depicting the Internment and Japanese colonialism, but are they enough? Every time I teach a children’s literature course, many of my students – mostly white – say they’ve never heard of the Internment, or colonialism, or anti-Chinese immigration history. Clearly, we need more books on these subjects.
Also, the phrase “diverse books don’t sell” has been floating around the industry, so why would an Asian American author or illustrator want to go up against that? And when diversity is included, what kind of diversity is valued? For example, APALA Literature Awards aren’t announced at the ALSC Youth Media Awards ceremony. It’s about survival in an industry that is not wholly inclusive of diverse voices.
There are many different Asian diasporic cultures and experiences, and we need more stories for all reading levels and in different genres. In particular, we need to hear more stories of Filipinos, Hmong, South Asian Indians, Pacific Islanders, and mixed-race Asians. I hope more Asian American authors will feel compelled to write mirror stories for our young people. I hope agents and editors will solicit our stories from our talented writers and illustrators. And I hope librarians, educators, and parents will work hard to connect young people with our stories.
Sarah Park Dahlen is an assistant professor in the Master of Library and Information Science Program at St. Catherine University.
Shveta: I have to say, this does not surprise me. I think it stems from a number of factors: even as we talk about the need for diversity, America is still steeping in a stew of whiteness. I didn’t think about writing characters of color until I was in my mid-twenties, and I’ve heard similar things from many other authors. And there’s still the idea that white is normal, so you’ll sell more if you write a white character, while you’ll be pigeonholed as a niche author if you don’t. (Which is nonsense, but . . .)
So it doesn’t shock me. That said, I don’t think every author feels that way. I know I don’t–I’ve made a conscious decision to have my stories always star desi characters and often use Hindu/Buddhist mythology and folklore–and I’ve seen other authors say they are trying to do similar things–but they also don’t want to be boxed in. Why shouldn’t they be able to write whatever characters they want?
And that’s a valid point, except that we do have this awful power imbalance and this internalized assumption that everyone can relate to white people, that when you “don’t see color,” what you’re really saying is that you have no problem reading all white characters written by white people.
When things come down to money, I do think a lot of people will (reasonably enough) bend and do what is more likely to put bread and butter (or whatever food they eat) on the table. Of course, that keeps the extremely problematic status quo intact. So what’s the right answer?
I don’t know what the right answer is. I can’t tell anyone how to write. But I can encourage us to keep telling our own stories and be the ones to represent us. I can ask white authors to shine the spotlight on us, and I do. I definitely can keep my promise to keep writing about people who look like me, and I always will.
Shveta Thakrar is a writer of South Asian–flavored fantasy, social justice activist, and part-time nagini.
Mike: When I was in sixth or seventh grade I was enrolled in a summer enrichment program where I took a writing class. I remember writing a short story about an astronaut named Bill Starr, who was as white as white can be. He was definitively not Korean. Back then it would have been impossible for me to articulate why I created a character that looked like the people I was surrounded by and not like me, and it’s no walk in the park to articulate it now, although I do have more insight. Things might have been different if my family had stayed in Los Angeles for my entire childhood – we had family there, and a church whose routines I disliked but whose people I’d grown up with – but we moved to a neighborhood in northern New Jersey that was devoid of people of color, and the impact was lasting. I was a deeply insecure and probably neurodivergent boy, one who lacked the easy facility with people that my father and brothers possessed, and in retrospect, the lengths I went to in an effort to avoid feelings of persecution and derision were lamentable.
I made racist jokes about myself and about others. I renounced my heritage. I distanced myself from my family. I started and continued hearing comments about being a banana Asian or an imitation white boy, and instead of using those comments as motivation to engage in critical self-analysis, I used them as rationale to distance myself further from my own ancestry. I feel the effects of those wretchedly misguided choices to this day; I imagine I’ll feel them until my bones are in the ground. I’m not suggesting those choices were made by every Korean-American child who grew up in a predominantly white community, because there’s no single, universal narrative that applies to all of us. My brothers grew up in the same environment, but seemed to emerge more whole than I did—they certainly evinced less obvious self-loathing in following years, and had fewer obvious struggles than I did, although of course not all struggles are obvious.
What I think IS universal about my experiences is the way they were massively influenced by the society around me. The all-pervasive norms of white America really are pressed into our psyches with the percussive force of a jackhammer, especially through pop culture, and I was a greedy consumer of escapist entertainments. I also lacked the psychological and intellectual sophistication required to dismantle the model minority myth, and there were ways in which I swallowed the whole damn fishing rod in that way. I didn’t question talk of the innately disciplined and gifted nature of Asian-Americans, and I didn’t perceive the subtle dynamics of dominance and condescension that accompanied such talk. Compliance; obedience; acceptance of authority; I was the poster boy for those qualities.
Unlike so many who have spoken and continue to speak up, I have no history of meaningful activism, scholarly inquiry, or professional accomplishment in the realm of anti-racism work. I’m making an effort now, but making that effort has me feeling exposed in a way that’s entirely new to me. My perspective, which has always been thickly laden with uncertainty, has taken another yet another layer of uncertainty. That perspective is mine and mine alone, of course; it would be inappropriate to say that my emotionally complex life experiences or self-perceived limitations apply to any other Korean-American writer’s choice to create characters of (for example) white European descent. I also refuse to believe that writing characters whose racial and ethnic identities don’t align cleanly with our own is an invalid choice; as an author who I deeply respect said to me at a recent conference, we are not and shouldn’t be restricted to writing the racial and ethnic equivalent of memoir.
That said, I suppose I’ve been presenting one possible reason for the noticeably high percentage of Asian authors who write about non-Asian characters throughout this post. For me, fueling my work with my own experiences of racial identity is deeply uncomfortable; painful, even. It hurts to write a story that forces me to confront the places of disconnection within my heart and mind, and I’ve only recently committed myself to engaging in that process indefinitely, so there’s a long, snaking road of discomfort ahead of me.
That’s not the only potential reason, of course. I do believe the choice to write outside of our own experience does always involve an element of creative ambition. We have the desire and the right to push against our own creative boundaries; exploration is an essential part of the creative life. However, I suspect I’m not the only one contending with my particular brand of discomfort, and while I’m not exactly happy to contemplate that probability, it helps me to push onward. I want and need the help, because grappling with the discomfort is a necessary part of the process. It’s terribly, distressingly necessary.
Mike Jung is the author of the middle-grade novels Geeks, Girls, and Secret Identities (Arthur A. Levine Books/Scholastic, 2012) and Unidentified Suburban Object (Arthur A. Levine Books/Scholastic, 2016). He’s also contributed essays to the anthologies Dear Teen Me (Zest, 2012), Break These Rules (Chicago Review Press, 2013), and 59 Reasons to Write (Stenhouse, 2015). Mike is a founding member of the We Need Diverse Books team, and serves as a grant officer for the WNDB Internship Program.
Katie: Of course, everyone should be able to write about whatever they want. I think another question is what motivates some artists to reflect their experience and feel driven to tell their stories when other artists do not.
From my own perspective, I was motivated to become a children’s book author/illustrator for the primary purpose of making a children’s book about the Japanese American internment camps. I had enough generations behind me where older generations of my family, unlike other Asian-American families I knew, told stories openly about this time. I was fortunate to grow up in a family that valued their own stories and our own history in the context of this country’s history (also it’s true what they say about Japanese people and cameras and we have family photos dating back to Okinawa in the late 1800s if that’s possible, so we had insane family records).
The second primary motivating factor for me was that I grew up just north of Detroit in a small town that was built around a GM auto plant. The entire culture of my town was based on the auto industry and was extremely conservative, white, working-class and during the recession of the 1980s, highly anti-Japanese. Vincent Chin was killed when I was 6 years old not too far from our home and the racism that inspired his murder was pervasive in mainstream Detroit culture throughout that decade. For me, as an artist and activist, it was formative. My idea to make a book about the internment came no more from poignant family stories than it did from racist U.S. history teachers asking me to address the class on the anniversary of Pearl Harbor. “You’re Japanese, Katie. Why don’t you tell the class what happened on that day in history.” That was always my opportunity to teach the internment, which I did, but you get the point. There were absolutely no books or teaching materials that I was aware of at that time that I could throw in my teacher’s face.
Last fall I spent a month at the Japanese American National Museum in LA doing a mural [Moon Beholders, below]. It was a wonderful experience, and full of interesting encounters with other JAs of my same (4th) generation. They found me to be “much less Japanese,” and I found them to be way less political. They grew up in a community of people with whom they identified racially and culturally. They grew up, in a community of people who had shared stories and a common past. They didn’t need to tell the story in order for it to be told. This geographic difference profoundly impacted the people we became and the type of work we were motivated to do and I found that to be really fascinating.
When I look at Asian and Asian-American author/illustrators in my children’s book class in SVA, and even my younger students (NYC public middle schoolers), it is extremely rare that students want to create stories that have elements of personal or cultural narrative. They are also, almost never, in the minority. Art schools these days are full of illustrators, especially from China and Korea. And although the stories that they often tell do not focus on an Asian main character (until we talk- or Zetta comes for a visit to the class and then they do), the aesthetic and feeling of the book is, in most cases, recognizably Asian. It’s hard to explain what this means, but if you were to give me a pile of student work with no names, I could 99% of the time identify the books created by the Asian author/illustrators.
I’m not sure what the point of that is, but it just leads me to wonder more about the intention of these artists. I can only guess that their intention varies from someone like me, because they grew up in cultures that were much more homogenous or in the case of first generation Japanese, perhaps the intention is different racially because they come from a place that values conformity over personal expression. Perhaps because racial diversity is not part of the cultural conversation in some of these cultures, the way to distinguish ones own story from someone else’s would be purely content based.
This is becoming a bit of a ramble, and I realize I’m writing to a bunch of authors so . . . sorry! But I guess my main point is that the motivation of any artist will likely be derived from many sources, including where, when and how they grew up- and what race (and power and economic class) meant to them in that context. Who got to tell the stories they heard growing up and why?
Katie Yamasaki is a muralist, community artist, and children’s book author/illustrator based in Brooklyn, NY.
Sona: I do see this as double-edged. Personally, I rarely saw myself in books as a kid or teen, and my kids still won’t if we keep going at the rate we’re going. So I strive to be diverse and inclusive in my work, and certainly plan to create representations of my own experience and culture.
That said, as a writer, I believe I have to do what best serves the story. In the case of Tiny Pretty Things, for example, there is an Asian character (several, in fact), but not a South Asian one. My co-author Dhonielle Clayton and I made a strategic decision to stay true to the diversity that actually exists in the dance world, rather than force a character of a certain ethnicity or experience because it was familiar/comfortable. We were writing a contemporary YA set in a particular place and time, and we wanted to stay authentic to that world. It’s fiction, but I’ve found that oftentimes fiction needs to feel more realistic and logical than non-fiction.
In many of my other projects, though, even if it doesn’t make sense for the main character to be from a background similar to my own — which, by the way, is South Asian/Indian/Punjabi by way of Central Jersey — I do frequently try to people the story’s additional characters with diversity, including representations of those of South Asian descent, dismantling the tropes and stereotypes, rather than reinforce them. And of course, I have many projects in progress and in mind that will center on South Asian American characters from a variety of experiences. This has been the case for me as a writer for a long time, but like many, when I first started writing, I was writing the “mainstream” experience — meaning no diversity at all.
I don’t think anyone should feel obligated to write about any particular thing. However, the lack of representation of people of color — and especially my own community — obviously affected me in profound ways, and no doubt will continue to affect young readers for generations to come if we don’t do anything about it. That is something that weighs heavily on me — and it’s the reason Dhonielle and I co-founded CAKE. That’s why I’m committed to creating diverse characters and representations. That’s why I will always strive to include organic, integral diversity in my work, no matter what the content or form.
Will this hinder sales? Will this prevent some works from making it to the traditionally pubbed market all together? While things are changing slowly but surely, I do think that publishers still fear this — and I do think that the whole idea of “one book per list” is not gone by a long shot. Will that prevent me from writing what I want to write or creating the representations I think are necessary? Hell no.
Sona Charaipotra is co-founder of CAKE Literary and co-author of Tiny Pretty Things (HarperTeen, 2015). She is also a full-time freelance writer focusing on entertainment, lifestyle and parenting.
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July 14, 2015
an open letter to Jet Blue
Photo: John Spaulding
As authors, librarians, publishers, and scholars of children’s literature, we were thrilled to learn that Jet Blue was promoting a new initiative within the Soar with Reading program. Placing free book vending machines in low-income areas of Washington, DC is an innovative idea, and we commend your corporation’s commitment to promoting literacy through the development of home libraries. Upon visiting the Soar with Reading website, however, we were dismayed to see that the books on offer seemed limited to The Magic Treehouse series. These books undoubtedly appeal to young readers and they serve as windows into other worlds, but they fail to serve as “mirrors” for the children of color most likely to access the vending machines (which can have unintended consequences). We subsequently requested and reviewed the list of titles* and found that of the 46 books, only FOUR are written by people of color. The remaining books feature white children and a wide variety of animals—not the sort of diversity we hoped to see.
For decades, people of color and their white allies have fought for greater diversity in children’s literature; the latest manifestation of this activism can be found in the We Need Diverse Books movement. Statistics compiled annually by the Cooperative Children’s Book Center show that the publishing industry has stubbornly refused to produce books that reflect the nation’s diversity. Although children of color represent the majority of school-age children in the US, the publishing industry–and corporate publishers in particular—continue to generate books that overwhelmingly feature white children only.
As literacy advocates, we sincerely want to see the Soar with Reading program succeed. We do hope, however, that you will make every effort to partner with independent publishers that make diversity and equity a priority; we recommend Lee & Low Books, Just Us Books, Cinco Puntos Press, Pemmican Publications, and Rosetta Press (diverse titles from these and other publishers can be found on the We’re the People summer reading list). We also urge Jet Blue to connect with nonprofits like the Children’s Defense Fund and Reading Is Fundamental; these organizations serve the same population you hope to reach, and could provide advice on developing a more diverse book list. Children of color are eager to see themselves reflected on the pages of the books they read, and stocking your vending machines with such titles might heighten demand and ensure that the children are deeply engaged with the books they take home. We share Jet Blue’s goal of improving literacy through book ownership, and ask that you consider us a resource as you expand and improve your Soar with Reading program.
Sincerely,
Tracey Baptiste, M.Ed., author
Ebony Elizabeth Thomas, Assistant Professor, Graduate School of Education, University of Pennsylvania
Cheryl Willis Hudson, author/publisher
Nathalie G. Mvondo, writer/blogger
Gabrielle Halko, Associate Professor of English & Children’s Literature Specialist, West Chester University
Olugbemisola Rhuday-Perkovich, children’s author/educator
Carleen Brice, writer
Sarah Park Dahlen, Assistant Professor of Library and Information Science, St. Catherine University
Dr. Nancy D. Tolson, Children’s Literature Scholar
Robin Bernstein, Professor of African and African American Studies, Harvard University
Leslie Gallager, Librarian, Brooklyn Prospect Charter School
Ed Spicer, Educator and Curriculum Consultant, Allegan, MI
Sharon McKellar, librarian
LaTonya M. Baldwin, blogger/activist/parent
Allie Jane Bruce, Children’s Librarian, Bank Street College Library/We Need Diverse Books
Sarah Hannah Gomez, blogger/critic/scholar
Edith Campbell, librarian
Sofia Quintero, author
Karen Simpson, author
Michele Simms-Burton, writer
Philip Nel, University Distinguished Professor of English, Kansas State University
Shveta Thakrar, M.A.
Kelly Starling Lyons, Children’s Book Author
Dr. Debbie Reese, American Indians in Children’s Literature
Dr. Zetta Elliott, author/scholar/publisher
If you would like to add your name, please do so in the comments section.
*list of titles provided by Tatiana Kneer
1
busy doggies
John Schindel & Jonathan Chester
2
10 Hungry Rabbits
Anita Lobel
3
Where Do Diggers Sleep at Night?
Brianna Caplan Sayres
4
Panda Kisses
Alyssa Satin Capuccilli
5
Too Many Cats
Lori Haskins
6
Bear Hugs
Alyssa Satin Capuccilli
7
Dinosaurs before Dark
Mary Pope Osborne
8
Knight at the Dawn
Mary Pope Osborne
9
Fact Tracker: Dinosaurs
Mary Pope Osborne
10
The Whizz Pop Chocolate Shop
Kate Saunders
11
Bud, Not Buddy
Christopher Paul Curtis
12
Cause
Tonya Bolden
13
Sweet Dreams Lullaby
Betsy Snyder
14
busy kitties
John Schindel & Jonathan Chester
15
Dancing Feet!
Lindsey Craig
16
Go Robot Go
Dana M. Raur
17
Hot Dog
Molly Coxe
18
Mouse Makes Words
Kathryn Heling/Debora Hembrook
19
Dolphins at Daybreak
Mary Pope Osborne
20
Fact Tracker: Knights & Castles
Mary Pope Osborne
21
Fact Tracker: Dolphins and Sharks
Mary Pope Osborne
22
One Came Home
Amy Timberlake
23
100 Cupboards
N.D. Wilson
24
Discovering Wes Moore
Wes Moore
25
Dim Sum For Everyone
Grace Lin
26
What’s Up, Duck?
Tad Hills
27
How Do Lions Say I Love You?
Diane Muldrow
28
Too Many Dogs
Lori Haskins
29
Dancing Dinos
Sally Lucas
30
I Like Stars
Margaret Wise Brown
31
Dark Day in the Deep Sea
Mary Pope Osborne
32
Night of the Ninjas
Mary Pope Osborne
33
Big Egg
Molly Coxe
35
Emerald Atlas
John Stephens
36
Flesh and Blood So Cheap
Albert Marrin
37
Duck & Goose: Goose Needs a Hug
Tad Hills
38
Duck & Goose 123
Tad Hills
39
The Little Airplane
Lois Lenski
40
My Loose Tooth
Stephen Krensky
41
Cat on a Mat
Susan Schade
42
Ducks Go Vroom
Jane Kothuh
43
High Tide in Hawaii
Mary Pope Osborne
44
Fact Tracker: Ninjas and Samurai
Mary Pope Osborne
45
Fact Tracker: Tsunamis and Other Natural Disasters
Mary Pope Osborne
46
Sky Jumpers
Peggy Edleman
July 13, 2015
counting down the days
July is slipping away! I’ve got three books “in production” and so spent this morning sending feedback to my illustrators. I Love Snow! is almost finished and A Wave Came through Our Window is at the halfway mark (see the latest from Charity Russell–amazing!). I’m hoping that book will be ready by August 19, which is when I’ll be reading in the Kids Corner at the Marcy Plaza farmer’s market. I believe they’ll be giving away free books for the first ten kids, so get there early; readings are every Wednesday from 1-2pm. I’ve been reviewing my list of manuscripts and would really love to have these two illustrators work on 2 more books. But I don’t have a job this summer, so can I really afford to keep self-publishing picture books? And what about the YA novel that is about a decade overdue? Publishing old work is definitely a way to avoid creating new work. This afternoon I will be working on a discussion guide for my two City Kids books, though I also plan to make my first bundt cake. On Wednesday I’m heading up to the Bronx to learn more about Dream Yard’s collaboration with Libraries Without Borders; they’re launching the Ideas Box in a public park, which should provide local kids with hours of book-based entertainment. I’m donating a set of my books to the portable library and will let you know if they’re looking for more donations. I saw on Facebook that Jet Blue is setting up free vending machines in DC as part of their Soar with Reading program. But the books being provided to low-income communities are NOT mirrors for these Black children—the only options seem to be The Magic Treehouse series. Too often it feels like we take one step forward and two steps back…
July 8, 2015
a good week
On the news recently I saw President Obama being questioned by the press about his “best week.” They meant the week when the Supreme Court ruled in favor of the Affordable Care Act and marriage equality, but Obama responded that marrying Michelle was a good week, along with the weeks when his two daughters were born. We have personal achievements and professional accomplishments; for me, a really good week combines both, though sometimes it’s hard to distinguish between the two. As a writer, I’m self-employed and spend a lot of time at home. I’m not doing school visits right now, though today I’m heading up to SVA to speak to Katie Yamasaki‘s illustration class, and on Friday I’ll Skype into Michelle Martin‘s graduate class at Simmons. Last weekend I finished the first draft of Dayshaun’s Journey (or Dayshaun’s Gift, I’m on the fence) and almost immediately found an illustrator online. Yesterday my illustrator in Hong Kong submitted all 13 illustrations for I Love Snow! and my UK illustrator, Charity Russell, is turning in fantastic pictures for A Wave Came through Our Window. On Sunday I had a chance to break bread with Ebony Thomas who’s visiting from Philadelphia. On Tuesday a group of us got together for tea and talked for hours on end. Then I walked 30 blocks with Tracey Baptiste and we got to swap ideas about organizing a movement. I know people think that introverts hate to be social, but that really isn’t true. I crave social interaction but only under certain conditions. Having a corner booth at Alice’s Teacup was perfect because all five of us fit and were close enough that we didn’t have to shout to be heard. No one rushed us out of the place, and I didn’t overindulge since they were out of banana nutella cake. Being with other writers is important because we can talk honestly about the publishing industry and certain individuals and/or trends that we consider problematic. There’s lots of laughter, a little gossip, and space to scheme. I’ve thought about leaving this support group; I’m the only self-pubber and don’t have the insider insights of the other authors. But I’m almost always the outsider—in any context—and generally prefer that position. And the ladies insist that my perspective is just as valuable, so I promised not to secede from our union anytime soon. I doubt I could replace the positive energy our monthly meetings generate, so I’m going to keep on counting my blessings and trust that this week will end just as it began.
l-r: Ebony Thomas, Tracey Baptiste, Dhonielle Clayton, Ibi Zoboi, me
July 1, 2015
who you are
I’ve been asked to write another article about self-publishing and I’m not sure I have anything left to say. I’ve got a couple of ideas around white women allies versus “frenemies,” which were strengthened by this article on white women’s silence around the Charleston church murders (allegedly carried out in their name). What if the white women who dominate the children’s literature community stood up and said, “I don’t want to be an excuse for racist violence in publishing/libraries/public schools/bookstores?” Imagine how transformative that would be! But you can’t change what’s in people’s hearts. The Confederate flag can come down, people can optimistically declare #LoveWins, and Black churches will still burn in the South. Black women and girls will continue to be brutalized by police. Transgender women of color will continue to be murdered. Chloe Angyal writes,
…the distinction between women and womanhood should not let individual white women off the hook for how we benefit from and participate in racism. That we are victims of sexism does not erase our culpability in American racism. If anything, the powerlessness we feel as a result of sexism too often urges us to hold on to, and exert over others, what remaining power we have. For white women, that means the power gifted to us by the color of our skin. Few white women resisted lynching in the early 20th century. A gendered and raced pedestal isn’t always comfortable to stand on, but it comes with a lot of perks and not a small amount of power. When contemporary black feminists critique white feminists for failing to recognize, interrogate, and cede their own racial privilege, that complaint is rooted in history. The bonds of sisterhood can be strong, but too often, they have been weakened by some sisters’ willingness to continue benefitting from whiteness (or worse, their stubborn refusal to recognize that they do).
Do I want to devote more of my time and energy to critiquing white women? Not really. I’m nearing the end of this new early reader, and I’ve got two fabulous women illustrators working on picture books. A friend posted a stunning photo on Facebook this morning that was paired with a quote from Brazilian dancer Ingrid Silva: “Let your craft be an authentic representation of who you are.” My books aren’t perfect, but they accurately reflect who I am and what I believe. Working with illustrators can be challenging because I’m not entirely comfortable telling people what to do. I know what I want, but I can’t make the art myself and I want to be respectful of the illustrator’s vision for the book. But these latest collaborations have been so empowering—my illustrator in Hong Kong actually thanks me for providing guidance! And look at her work—it’s amazing. Which makes me want to do ANOTHER book with her, and so I’m sifting through over a dozen manuscripts that are growing old on my hard drive. But I also need to write. So I’m trying to find that balance. Trying to be who I am and get my work done without being distracted by racism and others’ failure to take responsibility for their actions/inaction…
“Heavenly Angelic Snow” by Fung Ming Wong from my forthcoming picture book I Love Snow!
June 27, 2015
love & marriage
Some people ended this week on a high due to the SCOTUS ruling on marriage equality, and some remained in mourning for the 9 victims of domestic white supremacist terrorism in Charleston, SC. This morning I find myself wanting to write about love, which has been on my mind for some time now. I went to see Far from the Madding Crowd a couple of weeks ago and left the theater wishing I could name at least one love story that explored the complexity of Black love. There are so many tropes and conventions that are problematic and far-fetched—I don’t know if “love at first sight” is real, but it’s not a compelling plot device. In Far from the Madding Crowd, three men propose to a young, independently wealthy woman after meeting her once or twice. There were a couple of good lines (HIM: “I can give you a piano and a gig.” HER: “The thing is, sir, I already have a piano and a gig.”), but the film still begins with the woman 
asserting, “I want to be tamed.” Overall, the men don’t fare well in that movie; one ends up dead, the other goes to prison for murder, and the “good guy” who put up with at least a year of foolishness gets the girl (though it’s unclear whether she consents to marriage). I want to see a movie that shows how love evolves over time, and I’d really like to see something that shows the inner workings of a (Black) man’s mind. Maybe that’s why I was so unimpressed with Dope when I saw it last week. The representation of the 3 women in the movie—all light-skinned—is appalling and the nerds don’t really seem like outliers. There’s some bullying, but then the conventions of masculinity kick in and they’re suddenly selling drugs, toting guns, and having hot chicks throw themselves at their feet. Sigh. The premise did seem original but all radical possibilities around gender vanished as the movie progressed. I found myself checking the time and posting my disappointment on Facebook. Wealthy Black men (Sean Combs, Pharrell Williams, Forest Whittaker) funded this film and that really depresses me because it means that THIS is how they prefer to see Black women. I think they should change the movie’s title to Done or Nope…
I can be fairly sentimental but I’m not a romantic. And I don’t want to rain on anyone’s parade, but I’m troubled by the hashtag #LoveWins. The right to marry really isn’t about love, it’s about privileging a certain expression of love, and those of us who don’t wed are certainly not “condemned to live in loneliness” as Justice Kennedy opined. I’m glad that people who want to marry can do so legally in the US, but as a single, child-free woman I will never receive the rewards reserved for married couples. This past week many of us celebrated the SCOTUS ruling upholding Obamacare—and that’s something from which I DO benefit—but it saddens me that we’ve all but forgotten that the single-payer system was the best, truly radical option (except for presidential hopeful Bernie Sanders). In this insightful article, “Marriage Will Never Set Us Free,” two scholars break down the ways in which the marriage equality movement deflects attention and resources away from the truly radical goals of social justice movements:
Same sex marriage advocacy has been harmful just like other political strategies that seek inclusion in a violent state apparatus–such as the fight for gay and lesbian military service. Inclusion strategies like these valorize the things they seek inclusion in. Same-sex marriage advocacy has lined up with right wing family values rhetoric and policy to undo the work of our movements to gradually dismantle marriage and separate access to key necessities from marital status. It has aligned with conservative pro-marriage ideas about romance, children, families and care that support the attacks on social welfare programs and most severely harm low-income mothers of color. It has rescued marriage from Left critique and made straight and gay people on the Left forget what our movements have taught us about state regulation of families and gender. (my emphasis)
And then, of course, there’s the way in which the marriage equality ruling eclipsed the funeral of Rev. Clementa Pinckney. Kimberle Crenshaw’s Facebook post summed it up:
Steeling myself against rage today… the funeral of Senator Pinckney, delayed, now framed as “coming on the heels” of the Supreme Court’s landmark decision on same sex marriage. Today’s mind numbing contradiction is being framed as a window into the diversity of the President’s responsibilities, not about the deep, profound, disturbing reality that Black people still live in terror in this country. Nine dead people–killed while worshipping–are now afterthoughts, to be squeezed into the celebration of American Democracy. So now…Black people can marry whomever they please, but we can’t vote, worship, represent our people, swim, shop, or walk the streets without fear of being discriminated against or even killed. So on this day of sorrow and celebration, this is what democracy looks like.
Love, marriage, loss…
The grieving wife and daughters of slain State Senator Rev. Clementa Pinckney.
