All of these books provide a positive images of racial differences, however not all the books address this directly. In The Color of Us the little girl is struggling with her own skin color and begins to notice that all her friends in the neighborhood are have different shades of skin. Whereas, Lola loves Stories is just about a little girl that goes to the library with her parents and becomes the characters in her books. There are millions of options these are just some of the ones in our bookcases.
Children of minority groups rarely see main characters in books that look like them. According to the NYT, in over 3500 children written in 2013 only 3% were written by Latinos over 1/4 of the population of the United States is of Hispanic heritage. Out of the books written by Latinos not everyone has a Latino protagonist. Children of color doesn't see themselves as positive central characters in imaginary worlds, how must this translate to their realities?
If the goal is for young white children to see these images as well, then there must be intentionality to the that mission. If we, as parents, believe in equity and inclusion for all people then we must make it a priority for our own children. We create the lens in which they see the world.
No comments:
Post a Comment