Multicultural Reading

Hello Followers!

On this week’s children’s literature blog, I talk about two books whose central theme is immigration. Immigration to the United States has been happening for many decades, and recent political news has been focusing much on immigration lately. Last week’s chosen book was about the Jimenez family in The Circuit, and this week is about the Say family in Grandfather’s Journey. Both books mention stories about coming to America for a better life and how life was after immigrating.

In The Circuit, by Francisco Jimenez, young Francisco migrates with his family to California for a better life. His parents and older brother Roberto find jobs as seasonal crop workers. Over the years, Francisco works with them as well. Since Francisco and his family move every few weeks, they endure hardships and the struggle of having to find work every season. In Grandfather’s Journey by Allen Say, Say tells the story of how his grandfather immigrated from Japan to San Francisco when he was a young man. Say’s grandfather lives in California for a while before heading back to Japan to marry his childhood sweetheart and then bringing his new wife back to San Francisco to start a family. Over time, Say’s grandfather enjoys watching his daughter grow up, but he misses Japan- so the grandfather decides to move his family back to Japan. Again happy in his native country, Say’s grandfather is happy, and his daughter gets older and eventually marries. The daughter ends up being Say’s mother. Say’s grandfather begins to miss California, and wants to go back with his grandson, but is never able to do so. In the end, an older Say explains how he understands his grandfather’s journey.

Both books are culturally specific (Temple, 2014) because they tell the experience of people from a specific cultural group- Asian American and Mexican American. The nuances of daily life are captured accurately, reflecting language use, attitudes, values, and beliefs of members of the group portrayed. Such details add texture to the writing, making the stories more real and more believable and therefore making it more likely that readers will see the stories as authentic (Temple, 2014). Culturally specific books offer the insights necessary to indeed further readers’ understanding of different cultures. Both books offer backstories and insights on what life is like for an Asian-American and a Mexican-American. Readers get an idea of what each culture is composed of.

As can be seen, both stories represent literature from diverse perspectives (Temple, 2014). They allow students of all backgrounds to read about themselves and about other cultures they may not be fully aware of. By surrounding children with this type of literature, they are exposed to new work and experiences. It also allows students to be aware of the cultures of peers they go to school with. According to Nieto (1996), “all students of all backgrounds, languages, and experiences need to be acknowledged, valued and used as important sources of their education” (p. 8) This is important because then all students feel included in the work they are reading and learning about.

As teachers, we should focus on including multicultural authors and readings into our daily routine. One way we can do this is by having a pre-picked cultural theme and focus on that culture for the week. This way, students can be exposed to individual authors of a cultural group and get examples of different authors they can reference. One week can be Asian-American, the next week, Native American; they can learn and read about African-American authors or Latino authors the following weeks. Not only will students enjoy learning about new books and authors, but it also expands their literature exposure, and they will be more familiar and knowledgeable about much multicultural literature.

Thank you so much for reading! See you next week for the next blog!