Mystical Indians and Mythical Indians

So, I'm in between travel and wanted to post a few thoughts sparked by the last conference I went to (the NEATE one in Rhode Island). It was amazing to meet and interact with so many dedicated, caring English teachers. They were a lovely group, especially the ones in our workshop ;).

In my intro comments, I spoke a bit about how I came to write SHINE, COCONUT MOON and I wanted to share those here.

The book started out, initially, as a love letter to my eldest daughter. A while back she came home, chattering animatedly about Columbus Day. She described what she'd learned about the voyage across the Atlantic, the Nina, Pinta, and Santa Maria, and how Columbus discovered a strange new land, making friends with strange new people.

I held my tongue for the most part, and worked very hard to find age-appropriate ways to question and challenge some of the assumptions she was learning at school. I asked her how it's possible to discover something when there are already people there who obviously know about its existence. She nodded her head thoughtfully, pondering that one.

Everything was well and good until she said this:
"And we learned about the Indians. They lived a long time ago and they lived in teepees."

All of my composure and resolve to act as a mature parent was now in danger of crumbling. I told her that First Nations people and the indegenous people of North and South America are still alive and well, and living among us.

I could not convince her that this was true. Because somewhere in her mind, as a result of what she was being taught in school, she believed, without a doubt, that Native Americans were a myth.

I thought (okay, maybe obsessed) about this for some time afterward. I had to figure out a way to have my daughter question what she was learning without alienating herself, or making life difficult for herself in relating to her peers. I knew if that happened, I could lose her. She could easily turn her back to anything else I said down the line, because listening to me might result in painful alienation and isolation from her friends. And, as we all know, friends and social life are the MOST important things during those key, formative years.

I realized, too, that this same sort of mythification and mystification happens with "my kind" of Indians. I knew this on other levels before, but I'd never quite seen it in action before like this. I'd always known that India was romanticized in a lot of the literature I'd read. That India was portrayed as this far off, exotic land, waaaay across the ocean, with music that Madonna and the Beatles had decided to incorporate into their mega-gazillion dollar albums. This was not news to me.

What was different this time was the realization of how this affects kids in school. How, in Chimamanda Adichie's insightful words (see previous post), the "single story" shapes young minds--even in terms of their *own* identities. When, rather than looking to their own experience to define themselves, children reach, instead, for the "single story" that some teachers (many of whom are with these children more hours of the day than their own caregivers), teach from textbooks without examining its content or effects.

I don't know what the stats are on the exact percentage of kids who are bullied at school. But I would hazard a guess that a large percentage of that bullying is targeted towards children and teens who have some *identifiable* difference (race, class, not adhering to heteronormative confines, differently abled, etc). And while I love that many teachers and educators are on board with teaching children and teens about embracing and accepting difference, I am concerned that, at least in terms of race and multicultural education, that difference is still about "exotic others" living in far off lands.

For instance, teaching children about Guatemalan children feeding their animals in Guatemala doesn't necessarily help Guatemalan children here, dealing with their peers on a day to day basis. Likewise, my daughter learns at school about children in India and what their lives are like "over there". To her, there is absolutely NO connection between those children and her life. She looks at those children as exotic others because she doesn't identify with them. This is the same way she learned that Native Americans "lived long ago in teepees." Because the representations she saw were of Columbus's voyage, and that was all. She saw no other representations that year, or the next two after, of Native American children and/or people. She saw no images of Indigenous North American children of *today*, interacting with kids like herself and her friends.

On the other hand, if my daughter should read about or see images of South Asians in the present, navigating their daily life's challenges--challenges she can relate to and identify with--she will see herself in those depictions. And should her friends and peers read about, or see such images, they will begin to see her as a person who lives, loves, walks, and breathes among them. Not an exotic, mystical "other".

This was a huge reason I chose to write SHINE. It's also the reason I devoured novels like The House On Mango Street, The Joy Luck Club, The Absolutey True Diary of A Part Time Indian, Born Confused, The Not So Star Spangled Life of Sunita Sen, and a host of others. Though I love fantasy (and am writing two fantasy novels right now) as well as historical novels, I wanted my daughter and her friends to learn about what life is like for people here and now, when there is an obvious, identifiable difference to negotiate. And I want them to think critically about how much of that difference is real, as well as how much of it is an illusion. But they can never learn to negotiate that difference if it is always posited as being somewhere far away, or long ago, outside of their immediate experience.

Sometimes books help us find paths we never knew existed. Or allow us to dream up and forge new paths. I know some of the books listed above helped me do that, and I strive to provide the same in all of the books I write, regardless of genre. And the emails I'm getting on a daily basis let me know it's working, even if it's one little window at a time.

English Teachers

I'll be in Rhode Island this weekend, giving a workshop at the NEATE (New England Association of Teachers of English) conference. I'm really excited about this one because English teachers have totally saved my life in the past. Twice, to be precise.

The first time was in grade ten. I was fifteen and my youngest brother was three. Guess who got to look after him most of the time while mommy and daddy worked? Lucky for me (everyone, really), I adored the little pudge. So, on top of zits, plummeting self-esteem, popularity angst, and a boyfriend that I would nowadays refer to as "quasi-potentially abusive", I had a child to take care of. Enter Ms. Cute Blonde English Teacher.

Ms. CBET took a keen interest in me and my writing. She introduced me to books that truly opened doors and windows, she read my work aloud in class (while I sunk down in my seat), and she exuded warmth and kindness. I looked forward to her class all week and as soon as I walked through the doors, she lit up with that smile. I think I got all my vitamin D from her.

Then, in grade twelve. Seventeen now, and things had gone steadily downhill. I was now looking after a five-year-old who came to depend on me like a second mother. The quasi-potentially abusive boyfriend had just gotten out of juvie and was becoming more of what he'd been going in (thank goodness for friends who smack you around and say, "he's a LOOOOOSER! Dump him. NOW."). And, to top it all off, I'd just dealt with a groping teen counselor (groped a friend, not me) and a teacher who'd yelled in my face that I was making up my nationality. Enter Ms. Less Blonde, But Slightly Butchy former-English-teacher-turned-guidance-counselor.

Ms. LBBSB was like a personal guardian angel. I credit her with turning me around and putting me on  a better path when things could have gone any which way. She read my (dismal) poetry, put it all together for me and said that it was what would become my first book (she was wrong about that, but isn't that sweet?). She took photographs of me in the school yard and said they'd be my author photos (wrong about that, too, but again--how sweet is that?). And she gave me the number for an excellent, ethical teen counselor (for aforementioned friend who was groped).

Then, after I finished my MFA (this is not part of the official two "why English teachers are awesome" stories--just a bonus), another cute, blonde English teacher enthusiastically championed my application to teach at a New York City college. I wouldn't have gotten the job if it weren't for her inexhaustible support.

I think teachers often don't realize how much of a difference they can make in the lives of teens and MFA graduates looking for jobs. In my ideal world, teachers and moms would be paid the kinds of salaries pop stars and athletes make, and only the best of the best would be given the honour to work with young minds and hearts.

I can't wait to meet these English teachers on Saturday and pay it forward, even if it's just a teeny little bit.

I've been ruminating on this hotly contested post a bit since yesterday, and here are some of my thoughts. While I completely agree that books by PoC need to reflect the complexity of their communities -- in other words, I would LOVE to read a fantasy novel by a South Asian woman (which is why I wrote one), or about class struggle within an Asian family (maybe kind of like a YA version of Free Food For Millionaires, by Min Jin Lee?) -- basically, writing that shows PoC in all our diverse experiences, without constantly being pigeon-holed into currently existing stereotypes would be lovely; what I disagree with, as a former teacher and educator (and current mentor), is steering Black students *away* from Black-authored books (and, therefore, away from potential Black role models), and *toward* White-authored books.

My question would be: why not have students read both, then do a compare and contrast? Or, have them read Black-authored books that are more in line with the White-authored books you've decided are better learning experiences? This would require more research, but it would show a willingness to enter into the students' world.

In all my teachers' training and workshops, I've learned that teaching or preaching AT is never effective. What IS effective, I've always been taught, is to go to where your students are and use that as your starting point. In the Eastern medical tradition, doctors are taught to "listen to your patients for the cure." In other words, it is not about what YOU think your students need -- it is about listening to what your students tell you they need.

When I was a teenager, in addition to Tuck Everlasting and Are You There God, It's Me Margaret and the novels of Paula Danziger, I inhaled the novels of S.E. Hinton. These were raw, gritty, very edgy stories peopled almost exclusively with white teenagers, and told from the perspective of young white males. And I completely identified with their experience--around the issue of class. I was relieved that I was not the only one who felt like an outsider (ahem--sorry, pun not intended). I would quite likely have flung myself off the nearest tall building if someone steered me away from stories where there were worlds like mine, and toward worlds that showed no reflection of my reality, whatsoever. But most importantly, that there were people out there like me (outsiders--sorry, again), who were writing stories and getting them published. THAT was what expanded my reality. THAT was what showed me worlds and adventures I could strive for -- ones that were realistic, and achievable and pointed me toward independence and personal strength.

Which is why I am heartened that by the end of her essay, Ms. Almagor writes,

"But I believe that the purpose of story is to help us explain our lives to ourselves; and these are the stories they are choosing . . . Go ahead and call me a hopelessly unliterary child person: if this is what my children choose to read, I have to entertain the possibility that this is what they need to be reading."

Brava to that!