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Evaluating Books By and About American Indians
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From: Debbie Reese <d-reese>
Date: Fri, 15 Oct 1999 18:49:04 -0500
Hi Marc
Your points are well taken. Nonetheless, I think there is a lot to be learned from those guidelines, particularly because we've been inundated for so long with very narrow portrayals of Native people. Yes, they can be overgeneralized. And yes, there is good and bad in any person and their cultural history. But, at least with Native Americans, what we've had is either all bad, or all good--both stereotypical depictions that don't show us the individual with a range of emotion, attitude, or behavior. Paula Gunn Allen, Lakota/Pueblo scholar and author, has written somewhere that it is important that children be able to conceptualize a Native American as someone who would actually put disposable diapers on his/her baby. That seemingly simple statement says a lot!
In most books, the Indian is either the savage to be feared, or else is the hero to be placed on a pedestal, or "in a glass case" (to use the phrase from the US govt Meriam Report dated 1928).
I think what the guidelines offer is the opportunity to think carefully, to look critically, at the ways Native people are presented in children's books.
Thus far, we haven't had much input from CCBCers about the guidelines. Does anybody want to comment?
Debbie
_________________________________ Debbie Reese, Doctoral Student Dept. of Curriculum and Instruction College of Education, University of Illinois Champaign, IL 61820
Telephone: 217$4?86 Fax: 217$4E72 Email: d-reese at uiuc.edu
Received on Fri 15 Oct 1999 06:49:04 PM CDT
Date: Fri, 15 Oct 1999 18:49:04 -0500
Hi Marc
Your points are well taken. Nonetheless, I think there is a lot to be learned from those guidelines, particularly because we've been inundated for so long with very narrow portrayals of Native people. Yes, they can be overgeneralized. And yes, there is good and bad in any person and their cultural history. But, at least with Native Americans, what we've had is either all bad, or all good--both stereotypical depictions that don't show us the individual with a range of emotion, attitude, or behavior. Paula Gunn Allen, Lakota/Pueblo scholar and author, has written somewhere that it is important that children be able to conceptualize a Native American as someone who would actually put disposable diapers on his/her baby. That seemingly simple statement says a lot!
In most books, the Indian is either the savage to be feared, or else is the hero to be placed on a pedestal, or "in a glass case" (to use the phrase from the US govt Meriam Report dated 1928).
I think what the guidelines offer is the opportunity to think carefully, to look critically, at the ways Native people are presented in children's books.
Thus far, we haven't had much input from CCBCers about the guidelines. Does anybody want to comment?
Debbie
_________________________________ Debbie Reese, Doctoral Student Dept. of Curriculum and Instruction College of Education, University of Illinois Champaign, IL 61820
Telephone: 217$4?86 Fax: 217$4E72 Email: d-reese at uiuc.edu
Received on Fri 15 Oct 1999 06:49:04 PM CDT
