First of all, thank you to all of you taking the time to look at the library and ask questions. We are starting to spread the word more widely, and I hope to get an Open House Day set soon. Some kind of free reading day, maybe with snacks and adult readers on hand to do some read aloud times. We’ll see how it shapes up.
Second, yes, there is something here for you! I can’t promise a book about your exact life, of course, but we have some books for just about every way people can be diverse. If I can’t find you something, it may not exist yet! Check out the next page for some books featured for June’s Pride and Immigrant Heritage Month. We have been focused mainly on children’s literacy, representation, and diversity, but we do have books for adults. By the time you read this, we may have the young adult/adult bookshelf built and filling. Thanks to donations, we have a great collection of graphic novel/comic books for the 13+ age group. There are some classic works of fiction by authors like Toni Morrison and Colson Whitehead. There are nonfiction books like The Color of Law and Uncomfortable Conversations with a Black Man that can put experiences in context. Even more, and I cannot stress this enough, picture books are for everyone! Jeopardy! champ James Holzhauer has famously credited children’s books with expanding his knowledge to prepare for his appearance. To fill in some of the gaps in his stores of knowledge, he read books intended to distill knowledge in a readable, memorable way. He lists such things as literature and mythology, and said, “I had a Daily Double about the Denver Mint, which came from some Americana book that I can't remember the name of.” If you’d like to learn about a subject, children’s books are a great place to start! Dave Dettmann recently taught a poetry unit to freshmen in high school. He used one of his favorite poems (The Red Wheelbarrow) and a book from our library, a biography of poet William Carlos Williams. He said the class sat quietly and listened to him read the whole picture book. That seems like quite a feat in a year like this one was. I will wager that they will remember it for a long time, too. I recently had a chance to invite some friends from St. John’s Episcopal Church over for a catch-up meeting, now that we’re all vaccinated! After our tea and chat, we sat together in the hallway for an hour looking at books. In our group of four, we have a 50-ish, a 60-ish, a 70-ish, and an 80-ish representative. The oldest member in particular was struck by the changes that have occurred in children’s publishing since her teaching days. We had a great discussion about books, kids, and how we can bring these two things together in our community. If you haven’t picked up a good children’s book lately, you’re missing out! Come on by and find a new favorite. I’d be happy to chat books almost any time.
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Just as I was sitting down to write about some of the new books we’ve added to the library in the last two months, I heard a story about an attack on an Asian person by someone who told her she didn’t belong here. Which incident? The fact that the question needs to be asked is the first horrifying thing about it. The second is that I can add “the attack on the elderly Asian woman” and you still won’t be able to pin down which incident. The one I am referencing is Monday, March 29th’s, attack on a 65-year-old woman in New York City. It was a sunny late morning outside an apartment building when a very large man hit, kicked, and stomped a fairly small woman several times. From the video, it looks like she barely sees it coming. The surveillance camera inside the building catches it all. After a few kicks and stomps, the large man walks away. Then, a guard inside the building walks to the door. “Great,” I thought, “at least now he’ll render some aid until they can call police.” I am destined to disappointed fuming, though, as all he does is close the door. Horrifying thing number three.
I realize that video, though damning, doesn’t tell the whole story. The saddest part is that the whole story may actually be worse. There are two security employees and a delivery man, all fairly young, large, fit, guys, inside the lobby. Maybe they can be excused for being as taken aback as I was by the suddenness of the attack. Maybe they were shocked by the words and the violence. Even in New York City, I can’t imagine this is the norm. Maybe they were afraid the attacker had a gun and would shoot them for interfering. Maybe they did pick up a phone I couldn’t see and call the police. However, I have a hard time excusing them when they seem to ignore the injured woman on the sidewalk and just shut the door. How many times in our lifetimes has the story of the Good Samaritan come around in our Sunday morning readings? I would say I have heard the story dozens of times. We all like to cast ourselves as the Samaritan, too, I would venture. There was no Samaritan in New York City, at least not in the video clip I saw. Had these men never heard the story? Did they think it only applied to olden times? Did they, too, feel that the Asian woman doesn’t belong here? We don’t know any of that. From articles about the attack, I have found out that the company employing the apartment guards is investigating and has suspended the guard in the meantime. It also seems like his job description limited him to be inside the building. They are also trying to identify the delivery man who was there. The police are looking for the attacker (and have fairly good pictures) and Mayor DeBlasio condemned that attack, as well as another against an Asian man in the subway the same day. The woman is hospitalized with serious injuries. It is reported that the woman was walking to church. According to the organization Stop AAPI [Asian American Pacific Islander] Hate, roughly 3,800 hate crimes against Asian Americans have been reported in the U.S. from March 2020 to April 2021.The steep rise in violence seems to be tied to the COVID virus potentially originating in China. The other well-publicized attack on an elderly Asian woman has gone a bit differently. She hit her attacker with a stick she found nearby. People nearby said she was screaming at the man in Chinese, “You bum, why did you hit me?” Police arrived quickly. The attacker was taken to the hospital. It is thought he had also attacked an 83-year-old Asian man earlier. The woman also received treatment and is still recovering, though she has PTSD and lingering bruises. She has received nearly $1 million in donations from around the world which she is donating to fight racism against the Asian-American community. So, what can we do? Buzzfeed contributor and Chinese-American Clara Wang writes (full article here):
I would like to add a few more, with some book recommendations of those aforementioned new additions to the library. Learn to pronounce people’s names. Just this one simple act can make a huge difference. One culture’s names can be tricky for people of other cultures, so don’t be afraid to ask how to pronounce a name properly. Ask again if you need to! Most people with tricky-for-Americans names would probably prefer to answer this a thousand times rather than have you give them an “easier” nickname. Read The Name Jar by Yangsook Choi. In addition to supporting your favorite Asian restaurant, learn to cook a regional dish yourself! We have several books that explain a favorite national dish and some even include a recipe. Read about Chinese food in Dim Sum for Everyone by Grace Lin, Filipino food in Cora Cooks Pancit by Dorina K. Lazo Gilmore, or Indian food in Bilal Cooks Daal by Aisha Saeed. Find out about some of the famous people from Asian or Asian-American communities. One new biography we have is Queen of Physics: How Wu Chien Shiung Helped Unlock the Secrets of the Atom by Teresa Robeson. Review your history, as Wang writes in #6 above. Learn about the American experience of Japanese-American communities during World War II in I am an American: A True Story of Japanese Internment by Jerry Stanley. Look at the other side of the American dream with America for Americans: A History of Xenophobia in the United States by Erika Lee. See how a Hmong girl helps her neighborhood in A Map Into the World by Kao Kalia Yang. I take my role as an aunt to two nieces very seriously. I want them to grow up to be strong, capable, generous leaders. I never want them to feel stifled by the world, or to find something they love to do and be unable to pursue it because they don’t think it’s available to them. Luckily, they are being raised by parents dedicated to the same thing, with the resources to make it happen. For many parents and children, though, books to encourage their sense of belonging in the world are few and far between. Let’s work to change that!
As I post this, I am spending a Minnesota Conference UCC Ashley Micro-Grant to purchase a whole bunch of new, diverse children’s books for the church. Many of the titles on my wish list come from an amazing list compiled by A Mighty Girl. “75 Books about Extraordinary Black Mighty Girls and Women” . A Mighty Girl put together this list of books because “Too often the stories of African-American women, who historically faced both racial and gender discrimination, have been hidden from many mainstream histories.” The list celebrates Black women in history, the arts, mathematics, science, sports, entertainment, politics, and more. In addition, my wish list contains other books that support our mission for social justice, understanding of diversity, and love of children. Books about folks with autism, physical and mental disabilities, books about immigrants and children of immigrants defining the American dream, books about “the first” to do something heroic or amazing or even ordinary (like voting), books about Kamala and Malala and Lin-Manuel and RBG. I won’t be able to get all of them all at once, but a special donation is kicking off the effort, and the grant is taking us pretty far. If you would like to contribute, see our Amazon wish list. (If you don't want to purchase from Amazon, that's OK -- this just gives you an idea of what we need!) We share our space with Higher Ground Church of God in Christ. During the schooling at home issues of the pandemic, they have come across students being left behind. They have started a mentorship and tutoring program that I imagine will expand once we are able to meet in groups again. They also have connections in the community with young, working families. Their food giveaways have been a Godsend for many during this time of quarantine and economic instability. Love of children and social justice are missions we share with them. Statistically speaking, nationally, about half of children between birth and five years (47.8%) are read to every day by their parents or other family members. According to the Department of Education, the more students read or are read to for fun on their own time and at home, the higher their reading scores, generally. Reading and being read to has an impact that extends beyond just hearing stories. In a study of nearly 100,000 U.S. school children, access to printed materials was the key variable affecting reading acquisition. The number of books in the home correlates significantly with higher reading scores for children. Students who choose what they read and have an informal environment in which to read tend to be more motivated, read more and show greater language and literacy development. Children’s academic successes at ages 9 and 10 can be attributed to the amount of talk they hear from birth through age 3. Books for kids contain 50% more words that children are unlikely to encounter frequently in spoken language. In addition, seeing themselves represented in books helps develop self-esteem. Seeing from other viewpoints opens kids’ eyes to experiences they may never otherwise have. Unfortunately, reading together is an experience that not all children get on a regular basis. Sometimes parents work multiple jobs or odd hours. Many parents do not themselves have a high level of literacy and may be unable or embarrassed to read to their children. Immigrant parents may find it difficult to read in a second (or third) language. Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library has been amazing at getting books into kids’ hands. If you have children or grandchildren ages 0-5, make sure they’re signed up. Local Central Minnesota registration is through the United Way. Amazing as Dolly is, though, she can’t send dedicated adults to read the books. A future component to incorporate into our library program, then, is read-aloud time! We have many grandmas, grandpas, aunts, and uncles in the Peace UCC congregation, many of whom are retired educators. Would you be interested in reading with some kids once we are able to get together again? Could you be a tutor or mentor if needed? Let me know, and perhaps something will develop. We’re not going to make it for National Read Aloud Day 2021, which was February 3, but it would be fun to at least gather on National Read Aloud Day 2022. If you are in the Central Minnesota area and would like to make that a goal, let me know! **All volunteers who work with children in the Peace United Church of Christ building must read and agree to our Child Safety Policy, linked elsewhere on this site.** One thing that has struck me in the weeks leading up to the inauguration of President Biden is the diversity of his Cabinet picks. This may be the first Cabinet in history to accurately reflect “America.” Half are women, half are people of color, and LGBTQ people are openly represented. This diverse group seems deeply committed to a common goal of working to better the lives of Americans. While they will not always be successful, they will be unified in commitment to the Constitution and America’s founding principles.
There are those who think that discussions about representation are harmful, or that talking about multiculturalism or systemic issues somehow creates the problem. Ezra Klein writes in “Why We’re Polarized”: “The alternative to polarization often isn’t consensus but suppression. We don’t argue over the problems we don’t discuss. But we don’t solve them either.” Michael Kimmel, in Privilege: A Reader, states: “To be white, or straight, or male, or middle class is to be simultaneously ubiquitous and invisible. You’re everywhere you look, you’re the standard against which everyone else is measured. You’re like water, like air. People will tell you they went to see a ‘woman doctor’ or they will say they went to see ‘the doctor.’ People will tell you they have a ‘gay colleague’ or they’ll tell you about a colleague. A white person will be happy to tell you about a ‘Black friend,’ but when that same person simply mentions a ‘friend,’ everyone will assume the person is white. Any college course that doesn’t have the word ‘woman’ or ‘gay’ or ‘minority’ in its title is a course about men, heterosexuals, and white people. But we call those courses ‘literature,’ ‘history’ or ‘political science.’” While it would be nice if someday we didn’t need Women’s History Month or Black History Month, we won’t get there if we don’t acknowledge the issues that create a default setting. Is there some moral, religious and cultural singularity that can be called “American?” For too many people, the answer is yes, and that singularity is white US-born Christian man. Perhaps some of the difference is in how we choose to define and interpret words. The same word can be used as insult or compliment, depending on the situation and the intent. We have certainly seen that lately as heated rhetoric has exploded into actual violence. The Capitol was stormed by people carrying flags of the Nazi regime, the Confederacy, and replacing the Stars and Stripes with a TRUMP flag. They have the support of many Christians and even carried “Jesus loves Trump” signs. They consider themselves patriots. Are they “America?” It is still a time of self-examination as individuals and as a country. We have a brand-new opportunity to define what it means to be American. How can we live up to our commitment to the Constitution and ideals? How can we help to create a more perfect union—without the need for it to look or worship or celebrate or speak just like we do? Representation matters, but sometimes that is seen as multiculturalism and has been ridiculed and resisted. In my childhood books and television shows, there were few people of color, and they were rarely in main roles. When authors and TV writers began to add diverse characters, they were often tokens or stereotypes. Some of the early “multicultural” children’s books made sure to put an African-American, a person with a visible disability, an Asian, a girl, etc. into prominent places in the pictures, even when they weren’t discussed in the story. It was almost a mathematical equation that if you put one of each kind of person, it was inclusive. This was not the solution, but it was a start. Today, there is a joyful celebration of diversity in children’s books. Children (and grownup children) can see themselves realistically portrayed as central to the action, no matter who they are or where they are on life’s journey. Today’s children have never seen the world with only white characters even though it still takes effort to find diverse examples. They can aspire to anything and see someone who looks like them. The Supreme Court, the White House, the ballet, the lab, even outer space have come to life. We have “discovered” people like Katherine Johnson, the human computer from Hidden Figures, through books and movies. I say discovered, even though they have been there all along. American history is full of heroes and heroines of many colors, religions, cultures, sexual orientations, and more, and celebrating this fact doesn’t seem antithetical to our founders’ dreams and plans. I challenge you to examine your definitions. Look at your unique circumstance. Look at the world around you. During February’s Black History Month and March’s Women’s History Month, learn about a part of American history that you may have missed in school. The Smithsonian, PBS, and the History Channel are places to start. Our young poet laureate Amanda Gorman stated, in her inaugural poem “The Hill We Climb,” that “while we have our eyes on the future, history has its eyes on us. This is the era of just redemption we feared since its inception. We did not feel prepared to be the heirs of such a terrifying hour, but within it we found the power to author a new chapter to offer hope and laughter to ourselves.” What will our history book say about our choices in 2021? |
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AuthorMichelle Dettmann is the volunteer head librarian for the ABCDLibrary project. Michelle graduated from Concordia College, Moorhead, MN, with a degree in Elementary Education and a passion for children's literature and literacy. A lifelong member of the United Church of Christ, she is dedicated to their principles of justice, accessibility, and embrace of diversity. Archives
June 2021
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