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Hannah Gomez/CBC Diversity
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From: Debbie Reese <dreese.nambe_at_gmail.com>
Date: Tue, 04 Feb 2014 13:59:41 -0600
We had a very intense discussion on CCBC-NEt about the CBC Diversity initiative... last year? Not sure when exactly, but I was calling them out on "diversity" much as Hannah did in her email and in the blog posts she pointed us to.
The book that won the Caldecott this year is Floca's LOCOMOTIVE. It is an excellent case-in-point in what-is-wrong with the Diversity initiative. It isn't pushing hard enough. I have a strong sense that it is allowing people to think "diverse" in a narrow sense rather than a broad one that would allow them to say, "Hey! Locomotive is pretty white, isn't it?"
LOCOMOTIVE is about a white family traveling on the Transcontinental Railroad. In the parts where Floca talks about the construction of it, he has an illustration of Chinese men who worked on the railroad. On a couple of pages he has, in the text, names of Native tribes, but not illustrations of them.
When I--a Native person--thinks about those railroads, I don't have happy thoughts. I think about greedy people who wanted Native lands for those railroads. I think about the end point of the railroad and the gold rush, and how Native people were killed by gold miners. (And--while I'm on the topic of gold miners, it is incorrect to continually show gold miners as these plucky guys with a tin pan dipping it into a river... the destruction the REAL mining wrought was horrid.)
I wrote a critique of LOCOMOTIVE. Floca read it and responded. Here's the link. There was/is a lot of discussion about it in the comments, too: http://americanindiansinchildrensliterature.blogspot.com/2014/01/about-diverse-books-and-inclusivity-in.html
Hannah Gomez titled her blog post "caring is not trying, trying is not succeeding" and I think it is spot-on for what happened with LOCOMOTIVE being selected for the Caldecott. Seeing that railroad as a triumph of American ingenuity makes us blind to what it meant for Native people. To be able to see problems in the stories told about the US, we have to know more, and we have to be willing to set aside the master narrative of the US as being exceptional.
A typical response is that an author/illustrator can't possibly imagine all readers. I know that. But using that response as a defense goes to the point raised earlier, about books NOT being for some readers, too, doesn't it?
And---last point for now---over on Betsy Bird's blog, she posted about books in a "casual diversity" category. That term irked me because it seems to emanate from a desire to just have kids-of-color in stories. Their identity as kids-of-color doesn't matter. While I understand the point and have argued that we're a lot like anyone else, such things also feel like sentiments of the 1800s when the US government policy was to "kill the Indian and save the man." Stop being Indian, please, it said. Be American. Based on Betsy's reviews and posts, I know she is a stronger ally than a lot of people out there in terms of books by and about people of color, so I'm not beating up on her. Seeking "casual diversity" however, seems a retreat of sorts, where people can feel good about race without having to deal with it.
Debbie
__________________________________________________________ Debbie Reese, PhD Tribally enrolled: Nambe Pueblo
Email: dreese.nambe_at_gmail.com
Website: American Indians in Children's Literature
_at_ http://americanindiansinchildrensliterature.net
Now: Studying for MLIS at San Jose State University Then: Assistant Professor in American Indian Studies, University of Illinois
Date: Tue, 04 Feb 2014 13:59:41 -0600
We had a very intense discussion on CCBC-NEt about the CBC Diversity initiative... last year? Not sure when exactly, but I was calling them out on "diversity" much as Hannah did in her email and in the blog posts she pointed us to.
The book that won the Caldecott this year is Floca's LOCOMOTIVE. It is an excellent case-in-point in what-is-wrong with the Diversity initiative. It isn't pushing hard enough. I have a strong sense that it is allowing people to think "diverse" in a narrow sense rather than a broad one that would allow them to say, "Hey! Locomotive is pretty white, isn't it?"
LOCOMOTIVE is about a white family traveling on the Transcontinental Railroad. In the parts where Floca talks about the construction of it, he has an illustration of Chinese men who worked on the railroad. On a couple of pages he has, in the text, names of Native tribes, but not illustrations of them.
When I--a Native person--thinks about those railroads, I don't have happy thoughts. I think about greedy people who wanted Native lands for those railroads. I think about the end point of the railroad and the gold rush, and how Native people were killed by gold miners. (And--while I'm on the topic of gold miners, it is incorrect to continually show gold miners as these plucky guys with a tin pan dipping it into a river... the destruction the REAL mining wrought was horrid.)
I wrote a critique of LOCOMOTIVE. Floca read it and responded. Here's the link. There was/is a lot of discussion about it in the comments, too: http://americanindiansinchildrensliterature.blogspot.com/2014/01/about-diverse-books-and-inclusivity-in.html
Hannah Gomez titled her blog post "caring is not trying, trying is not succeeding" and I think it is spot-on for what happened with LOCOMOTIVE being selected for the Caldecott. Seeing that railroad as a triumph of American ingenuity makes us blind to what it meant for Native people. To be able to see problems in the stories told about the US, we have to know more, and we have to be willing to set aside the master narrative of the US as being exceptional.
A typical response is that an author/illustrator can't possibly imagine all readers. I know that. But using that response as a defense goes to the point raised earlier, about books NOT being for some readers, too, doesn't it?
And---last point for now---over on Betsy Bird's blog, she posted about books in a "casual diversity" category. That term irked me because it seems to emanate from a desire to just have kids-of-color in stories. Their identity as kids-of-color doesn't matter. While I understand the point and have argued that we're a lot like anyone else, such things also feel like sentiments of the 1800s when the US government policy was to "kill the Indian and save the man." Stop being Indian, please, it said. Be American. Based on Betsy's reviews and posts, I know she is a stronger ally than a lot of people out there in terms of books by and about people of color, so I'm not beating up on her. Seeking "casual diversity" however, seems a retreat of sorts, where people can feel good about race without having to deal with it.
Debbie
__________________________________________________________ Debbie Reese, PhD Tribally enrolled: Nambe Pueblo
Email: dreese.nambe_at_gmail.com
Website: American Indians in Children's Literature
_at_ http://americanindiansinchildrensliterature.net
Now: Studying for MLIS at San Jose State University Then: Assistant Professor in American Indian Studies, University of Illinois
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Received on Tue 04 Feb 2014 02:00:29 PM CST
