La Sala (the room) as cultural bridge

I went to an informal meeting of single Mexican American immigrant men who work in the fields near Pescadero, CA called LA Sala (the room) intended for socializing and sharing social resources.  I did this because I sometimes volunteer at Puente de LA Costa Sur in Pescadero, and la Sala is one of the things they told me about that I could use as a cultural observation.

Many of the 15 plus Mexican and central American single men who looked to be from about late twenties to late fifties are laborers that were bussed from the fields to the community church.  I found the meeting to be very welcoming warm, and full of a very positive energy.   The volunteers served traditional Mexican food to the immigrant laborers. One of the volunteers gave me a quick lesson on cultural and personal sensitivity, urging me strongly not to interview any of the men because many of them are intimidated by educated white men ad many have only a grammar school education and many have no formal education at all they are all pretty much illiterate to the point of not recognizing their own names. I was moved by how evocative, emotionally expressive the non-verbal communication was. It was a beautiful thing to see all this expressive open, vast happiness. Some of the men where quiet and some of the men were loud and boisterous but I could clearly see the emotions of each clearly expressed both in the talker and the receptive audience members.  

I only talked to a friend of mine in the group named Gabriel. We talked for a while. He kept saying things like thanks to god, and god willing. He rarely gives himself any credit. Gabriel is an incredibly humble man, who does a lot for many, many people. I learned a significant amount of information over a brief conversation and the whole time I observed him, the whole two hours I was there, he was quite abundantly and easily observably happy.

The part of the conversation that I will hold onto for a long time is our brief talk about work. I spoke of my observation that these men who had no material wealth what so ever to speak of, some of whom lived under tarps or in tents, seemed to be so effusively and tangibly happy. Gabriel said because they have work, since they have work they have each other, and they have life.” Talk about a revealing comment.  Its hard for me to believe this perspective, I am trying to be more receptive to all the non-materialistic perspectives, and I do believe that the best thing in life aren’t things, but to have next to nothing and celebrate life so abundantly is hard for me to integrate into my schema of gratitude in my daily living.

I learned a great lesson in cultural and personal sensitivity that not everyone has the basic privilege of a formal elementary school education, and I was reminded of the usefulness of nonverbal communication especially in terms of expressing emotion. Maybe we should all be give so much gracias a la vida, be so grateful for our work and for our lives.  This is a profound interculrutal bridge, we can all celebrate with each other or at least celebrate ourselves.   

where is the proportionate diversity in literature?

 where is the proportionate diversity in literature?

I have noticed in the bookstore where I work as well as in my local libraries in Palo Alto there is a drastic inequality, and literature injustice in regards to the amount of fiction books for books that focus on non-white non-Anglo Saxon (non-WAS) protagonists especially for the younger grades. I recently did a survey of a little over 1/2 of Linden Tree bookstore's 8-12 year old books and found that only 10% of our titles are about non-WAS protagonists.    
Think that even if the number was at 20% it would still be a little disproportionate to the Los Altos demographics, according to a the 2010 national survey showed that at least 30% of Los Altos residents (non including kids) are self identified as non WAS. This disparity, this huge gap between demographics and the diversity in the literature in our mainstream libraries and most bookstores is a shame.
The fact that online videos like the one we viewed for this class are happy examples, but are far too rare. Celebrating diversity is important as long as we celebrate with equal respect, equal love, equal pride for all cultures.
 We need to allow our diversity to show in our bookstores and libraries! Publishers need to allow authors of diverse and non-WAS backgrounds to get mass publicity and get their books prominently on the shelves. Librarians and booksellers need to read and promote books by non-WAS authors and books!! 
The Cultural influences on perception that Chen and Starosta talk about, is one possible explanation for this egregious disconnect between population demographics and diversity in literature. I remember as a kid going to an upper middle class suburban elementary school and seeing a few non WAS people. I remember my vast naiveté thinking that all the kids going to my elementary school must be in the same socioeconomic boat as me, going to a school called whose motto was friends around the world, but I digress. The point is, my limited mindset was a product of the cultural assimilation that was going on around me through out most of my early education.  This assimilation/homogenization, has created a false sense of security in false identities for some people. To identify as an American some would argue would say is saying “I am a proud to be ambiguous in my identity and I take more pride in where I live more than in who I really am.”  This cultural influence. can create immediate stereotypes or even lasting prejudice.
Whether there is active and acute prejudice (physical avoidance or selective exposure) is happening at the publishing, inventory, or display levels is almost certainly not the case anymore in most of the United States, but I wonder if there is some more subtle forms of cultural distance and dissonance is happening around the book world, not just in the United States. Can we really ever entirely rid our culture, our nation of prejudice in all its sinister forms? Lets hope so, maybe the racists just haven’t read the right book yet.     

 In libraries we can remedy this in many ways, advocate for diverse titles for inventory, display them prominently, and promote them when ever possible!

Top of Form

Chen, G.-M. (2005). Foundations of intercultural communication. Lanham, Md: University Press of America.

yet there is a growing concern for this completely insane discrepancy.

for just a few examples of the outrage

YALSA and publishers and the Children's Book Council

outrage and demanding diversity in publishing

dispropritionate percentage of children books of people of color, independent research

here are some recent government statistics and estimates that prove the gap

So basically if you are to remain unprejudiced while appealing to a mass market you need to know the demographics of your population and what percentage share of the market is and be accurate or at least not racist with who you publish. Or else many people of all races will be upset at your publishing company and the underrepresented hence further marginalized races will probably read less and you might well lose considerable money/market share, over the coming years until equality is served. Unless our expert government demographers are all wrong and people are being dishonest in their surveys, which I guess is a possibility.  

Houston we have a problem, speech can easily be far too mitigated

When talking about the reason for the Avianca 052 plane piloted by Klotz and Caviedes, Gladwell discusses how Klotz used plenty of mitigated speech. Mitigated speech is, as Gladwell explains means “any attempt to downplay or sugarcoat the meaning of what is being said. We mitigate when we’re being polite or when we’re ashamed or embarrassed or when we’re being deferential to authority.” (p. 194)  Mitigating speech is an easy way to get misunderstood, and to misrepresent your self in communications but sometimes that is necessary to save face and show all earned and thus due respect. Gladwell quotes experts and specialists on communication as well as some people in the new aviator training field which helped strengthen his argument. 

Gladwell writes about how mitigating speech is abundantly present in certain societies that have low uncertainty avoidance. As Hofstede suggested, there is strong evidence for a correlation between nationality/culture and different communication styles one aspect being the uncertainty avoidance that is such a apparent major issue in aviation as is power distance. Geert Hofstede’s idea of creating a power distance index is very valuable even today. Power distance is the amount of deference you give to authority in communication. Hofstede’s methods and measurements give us a measure for how communication styles differ between individuals as well as between cultures.  I see only possibilities for Hofstedes research! I see all the possible different populations, communities and subcultures that Hofstede’s methods and measurements could help us understand more accurately. 

Gladwell, M. (2011). The ethnic theory of plane crashes. In M. Gladwell, Outliers: The story of success(pp. 177-223). New York: Little Brown & Company. Retrieved from https://sjsu.desire2learn.com/d2l/lms/content/viewer/view.d2l?tId=1353956&ou=158593

mitigating speech

why do we need to praise 
undeserving authority with 
deferential speech
false pretense to a gentle servitude 
when we aren't the ones who have seen 
this leaders qualifications, abilities, personality, characteristics
and skills, we weren't the ones who gave them any authority
why must we serve them nothing but mitigated, and perhaps entirely dishonest words?

Paper and plastic, mass marketing and independence

As a bookseller at a local indie bookstore, I think that the idea that Hade talks about in his 2002 article about how independent bookstores such as the beloved Linden Tree hand-sell our books, so that the special book can find its way to the special reader. (Hade, 2002, p. 511) This said we are at the mercies of the marketplace especially with the big five and their hegemony as the biggest children’s book publishers.

I agree that because of mass marketing as Hade says in his 2002 article, that “The corporate owners of children’s book publishing have successfully turned recreational reading into a commodity” marketplace.  (Hade 2002, p. 515)  

If indeed as Hade claims and I agree that “Stories are the building blocks of our thinking.” (Hade, 2002, P. 515) So it is sad that the big five publishers are ever increasingly becoming brokers or gatekeepers of our literary lives. The idea that merchandising is becoming a bigger thing than the ideas and content of the books is staggeringly frightening sometimes. I think it’s a bad thing that kids and parents that come to the Linden Tree are practically forced to give into the whims of the big five publishers.

I think that the e-book movement and digitizing of books is a great thing, not just saving trees but allowing more independent e-book publishers more access to a potentially more equal playing field both are essential for the future of the world and literature. Audio books and text to speech make literature much more accessible to many more people of all kinds.

 I also think it is impossible to do adequate justice or at all replace a reading a book in physical form, not only because how much better it is for your eyes to read with indirect light (as opposed to light coming to your eyes directly from the screens we use and depend on.)

But also reading a physical book is an experience, the smell, the feel, the sounds of the page turning, at least three senses are activated in irreplaceable ways when reading using a real physical book.

We as advocates and readers, need both paper and plastic, we need the mass marketing, and our independent bookstores and our own independence of thought.

Here is some food for thought, how many of our creative images are created for us by mass marketing interests versus images created by artists simply for arts sake?

And what part of our childhoods are not for sale anymore? What is and what will be sacred for our children?

Hade, D. (Sept/Oct 2002). Storyselling: Are children’s book publishers changing the way children read? (PDF) Horn Book 78(5): 509-517. 

Sutton, R. (April 20, 2012). What hath Harry wrought? (WEB). Horn Book. Retrieved from http://www.hbook.com/2012/04/creating-books/publishing/what-hath-harry-wrought/.

Cinderella (the ashen faced girl) and Cinder (the "lunar" cyborg)

I chose Cinderella by the Grimm brothers as my fairy tale, their story of Cinderella goes as follows: One particular Rich man’s first wife dies, after giving birth to good pious girl, and the man remarries a control freak and the wife brings two externally beautiful but internally vile, wretched and ugly daughters into the house.  The good and pious daughter forced to be maid and servant nick named Cinderella because she sleeps near the fireplace and ashes or cinders get on her.  As it just so happens there is a three day royal festival coming to town.

The tree growing from Cinderella’s mothers grave (where she cries and prays every chance she gets) and its birds give Cinderella a spectacular and gorgeous dress and slippers were so dazzling was her dress that her no one recognized her, the prince dances with Cinderella. On day two of the festival the tree and birds give Cinderella an even more beautiful dress, everyone was too astonished for words. Except the princess who calls Cinderella his “partner.”

One of Cinderella’s glass slippers is caught on stairway upon Cinderella’s quick escape. The Prince goes on quest to find the lady who will fit the “dainty” shoes. The evil step sisters cant mangle their feet without getting noticed and so Cinderella gets to marry the prince and the step sisters are rendered blind by birds for the rest of their miserable lives.

As a totally different take on the Cinderella story I chose Cinder (Lunar Chronicles #1) by Marissa Meyer published in 2012.  In this dystopian sci-fi retelling of Cinderella, Cinder is a girl mechanic and servant who is also a “lunar” cyborg living in a dystopian New Beijing, on a planet earth that has been ravaged by a plague. Cinder is a servant who is, in disguise the single last hope for a planet doomed by the plague, but she has loyalties to the “lunars” who are because of a evil dictator woman hell bent on taking over the planet. Because of Cinder’s attraction to earth’s Prince Kai, Cinder finds her self in the midst of a intergalactic struggle that seems poised on the edge of war.

Caught between loyalty to her identity and her hearts desire, between honesty to who she is, and loyalty to her hearts desire. What is Cinder going to do? Common elements include the royal ball, a love interest that is also an important prince, a royal festival, a dropped slipper, horrible self image, abuse, bullying, and protagonist who is forced to be a servant for a long time (a number of years).

Cinder is a story book that is a great example of the mixing of science fiction and classic fairy tales. Cinder is a very likable character despite her mysterious and strange identity, and her sometimes quirky and clumsy behavior.  Marissa Meyers’s book speaks of betrayal of identity as a means to be honest to ones heart, an important lesson.

Grimm, Jacob and Wilhelm. "Cinderella." 1999. National Geographic.com. 3 July 2003 <http://www.nationalgeographic.com/grimm/cinderella.html>
 Meyer, M. (2012). Cinder. New York: Feiwel and Friends.

Blind Eyes on the Prizes

Blind Eyes on the Prizes

I think that the focus on prizes skews the discussion from what is to what gets rewarded.  The books are written the same with or without any award, awards are simply, in my honest opinion most useful as marketing devices. The sales of books that win any youth literature awards are all but guaranteed to skyrocket sometimes exponentially after they are recognized or “win” the award(s).

 Some books are chosen by the Newberry committee that is so carefully described by Bonnie J.F. Miller in her Fall 1998 article “What Color is Gold?. The books that win the famous Newberry award or win Newberry Honors, certainly give evidence to how the award is used and tremendously successful at selling those books. 

The critique by Marc Aronson in his article “Slippery Slopes and Proliferating Prizes” is fascinating in its approach to defining some awards as “limited by” the award committee’s identity.  MY response is that I agree with Miller’s point that “literature is subjective” and that awards are, as she quotes Joan Lyon Atkinson, “chosen by imperfect human beings who are of a particular time and place; they reflect the values and priorities of their eras and backgrounds.” (Miller, 1998)

  

I think we should add more awards for every category whether it be quality in a genre or more awards for more specific identities to increase the knowledge and understanding of all identities racial or otherwise.

There is simply no way to take the human aspect and the identity aspect out of a single person much less a whole committee of people, so why be upset at the human condition, and humanity in general, when we can work with each other. Identity is always a factor as long as we hold on to, and are attached to those identities, we will have to distinguish literature based on those identities, especially ethnicities or other identities who are treated as maligned and marginalized minorities whose youth literature could otherwise be ignored entirely or worse. If we do not distinguish literature, it can be and I think will be lost to our library users.

pairing YA lit with classics

Bruce Robbins article about using YA lit in high school English classes, is full of insight. I particularly enjoyed his idea that with out help some readers can be lost in the gap between middle school and high school because some kids can't effectively jump that gap alone, and this can make the young adults distrusting of books. This distancing from books can make some young adults become forced to read classic literature, which are usually books reluctant readers don't enjoy and because of this some readers can disengage and struggle to understand books through out the rest of their lives. I also like the methods and strategies Robbins article suggests for using new YA books and integrating them with the classics. 

As for how to incorporate more contemporary YA materials I would consult the award winners, as well as doing my own research to find what classic could fit with what new YA book or material (suggest non print materials for my students to use to better understand themes, plot, dilemmas, etc.).   

As for my own pairing of a classic with a relatively new YA book Ophelia by Lisa M. Klein copyright 2006, and Hamlet by Shakespeare would be my first choice of pairing for High School English Classes, that is not discussed by Robbins. I like Ophelia by Klein because it presents an alternate take where Hamlet takes a back seat to his lover Ophelia, and the book tells of the alternate point of view and different plot in a way that has Ophelia surviving, and searching for her life's meaning. It is a page turning thriller where all is revealed in the end.