Multiculturalism history in children's literature

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Multiculturalism is a set of beliefs based on the importance of seeing the world from different cultural frames of reference and on recognizing and valuing the rich array of cultures within a nation and within the global community” (Parkay & Stanford, Becoming a Teacher.  2004, p. 244).

·        Undeniably, this concept is critical in the classroom.  Students need to view and understand the world from multiple perspectives.

·        Multicultural children’s literature is an effective way to explore the goals and ideals of   multiculturalism this is where librarians can help.

·        Multicultural Literature is defined as literature about racial or ethnic minority groups that are culturally and socially different from the white Anglo-Saxon majority in the US whose largely middle-class values are most represented in American Literature. (Donna Norton, Through the Eyes of a Child: an introduction to children’s literature)

·        In 1992, Rudine Sims Bishop wrote an article “Multicultural Literature for Children: Making Informed Choices.”  In it the author points out that “the percentage of books about people of color continues to hover between one and two percent, but as the numbers of children’s books have increased, so has the quantity of multicultural literature.

Benefits of Multicultural literature in the library include:

·        ML puts emphasize cultural equality and respect

·        Through ML children who are members of a racial or ethnic minority  groups realize that they have a cultural heritage of which they can be proud.

·        This pride helps improve their self-perception and develop cultural identity

·        Learning about other cultures allows children to understand that people who belong to racial or ethnic groups other than their own are real people with, feelings emotions and needs similar to their own.

·        ML broadens understanding of history and geography,

·        ML works as bibliotherapy to cope with issues of abandonment, neglect, being bullied

History of Early Multicultural Books: The Snowy Day and Stevie marks the beginning of the movement for multicultural themes in the children’s literature hemisphere. 

          The Snowy Day by Ezra Jack Keats (1962) is often regarded as the first book to break the barrier into multicultural children’s literature.  This Caldecott Medal picture book shows an African American child as the story’s protagonist that was inspired by a photograph in Life magazine, Keats asserts that the protagonist, Peter, is an ordinary child that many other children can relate. Because the story does not focus on race, it considered culturally neutral- the Black characters seemed exactly like Whites, they were accepted as ‘ universal’

          Seven years later, Stevie by John Steptoe (1969) represents African Americans culture on a more specific level. In the story, a young boy, Stevie, stays with his family while his mother goes to work during the week.  The dialect in the story alludes to aspects of African American culture because the g’s in words are dropped and slang is used. 

          Since The Snowy Day and Stevie hit circulation in the 1960s, the market for multicultural children’s literature has grown significantly.  Many other cultures are represented in literature whereas these two groundbreaking books solely reflect African American culture. 

·        Currently, there is a dilemma in multicultural children’s literature concerning cultural authenticity. The debate focuses on the following question: Can authors write a book that portrays a culture other than their own? 

·        Thelma Seto (1995) writes one of the most direct assaults of this issue in her article “Multiculturalism Is Not Halloween.”  She argues “it is morally wrong for Euro-American writers to ‘steal’ from other cultures in order to jump on the multicultural bandwagon, unless they have direct, personal experience in the country where that culture originates – more than simply being a tourist or doing research in the library” (p. 93).  She compares authors who do this to Halloween as they are temporarily masking their true cultural identity. 

·        Jacqueline Woodson (1998) writes in her article: “Who Can Tell My Story?”  “Some say there is a move by people of color to keep whites from writing about us, but this isn’t true.  This movement isn’t about white people; it’s about people of color.  We want the change to tell our own stories, to tell them honestly and openly” (p. 45).  Although she poses a solid argument in that passage, her article contradicts one key factor in the debate.  She explains that she has a unique story and that no one but she should be allowed to tell that story, but as a black author she writes stories involving white characters and situations that have never happened to her directly. 

 ·        When evaluating multicultural children’s books ask yourself: “Does the literature display sensitivity to the concerns of the culture portrayed?” “Do they show variety in physical features among the people of any one group, or do they all look alike?"