From: Uma Krishnaswami <uma>
Date: Sat, 30 Oct 1999 19:08:06 -0600

I am surprised by the implication that inclusion of minority (in this case Native American) writers will lead somehow to a dilution of the "quality" in children's books. Does that mean then that the Dillons and Nikki Grimes have diluted children's lit because they introduced the black experience? Come on. By seeing this as a Native Am issue only I'm also feeling we're missing the bigger picture. This is a minorities issue -- only in many cases the minorities can be conveniently set aside because they're from
*someplace* else. What children's books have done for years is *exactly* the same thing with Native American peoples by pretending they were from SOMETIME else. That, thank goodness, with the richness of voices like Joe's and images like Shonto Begay's and others, is becoming less and less possible.

I don't think anyone's suggesting that no one outside a minority culture should presume to write of it -- but people who do that with flair are the first to admit that they select their points of view VERY carefully. Eleanor Schick spoke to this at a workshop I attended recently, when she said yes, she's written books about Navajo people, shaped with much consultation from within the community, but she would never pretend to write from a Navajo POV. She said, and I might be paraphrasing, but I think the words are close -- you can't write from within a culture if you've never been there.

My two bits.

Uma Krishnaswami Writer 765 CR 3000 Aztec NM 87410 50525H17
Received on Sat 30 Oct 1999 08:08:06 PM CDT