Juan Felipe Herrera's Talk 11/6

On Wednesday, November 6, 2019, San Diego State University's Chicana & Chicano Studies brought Juan Felipe Herrera as part of the Chicana & Chicano Studies' 50^th Anniversary Commemoration: Celebration, Consciousness-Raising, Sowing the Future. Throughout the fall of 2019 and spring of 2020, they are recognizing the founding of the CCS program and fifty years of engagement with social justice-oriented scholarship and community service.

SDSU president Dr. Adela de la Torre introduced Herrera, the poet laureate of the United States 2015-2017 and the first Chicanx poet laureate in this country. She says Herrera "embodies the experience of many people in the community" and provides a voice for those around him: “the work he does speaks to a community rich in culture." He graduated from UCLA with a B.A. in anthropology and received his M.F.A from University of Iowa. He has published 21 books, written musicals, and is involved in arts leadership for children in migrant communities.

I couldn’t help but constantly notice how Herrera embodied an aura of kindness, standing in front of us in all white and flashing a bright smile. As he stood in front of us, one of the first things out of his mouth was "how beautiful it is to be together and united." It is easy to forget the need to be united, but that night, students and faculty alike were united in our captivation of Herrera. We were united by Herrera.

Herrera strives for a kinder world, saying "it is good to become larger than we think we are…it is good to cast our voices out." He practices what he teaches, as many of his poems reflect current politics.

His first reading was the poem "187 Reasons Why Mexicanos Can’t Cross the Border." Herrera actively engaged the audience, having us shout "because" before every line.

"Because

multiplication is our favorite sport…"

"Because

we’ll dig a tunnel to Seattle…"

"Because

it’s Indian land stolen from our mothers…"

"Because

our passport says we’re out of date…"

"Because

people are hanging Milagros on the 2000 miles or border wire…"

"Because

brown is the color of the future…"

Herrera is a voice for the voiceless, but in this poem, we all yelled for those oppressed by the current political climate. He’s not just a voice for others, in this moment he helped us find our own voices. He reminds the audience through his poems that every voice is important, as we yelled "because" 187 times that night.

Herrera also read a touching poem, "California Brown," which lists the names and ages of the victims of the 2017 Parkland shooting.

His voice is inspiring, and in the audience I saw this inspiration. During the reading I kept noticing a man in a brown jacket and a feather in his hat drawing a sketch of Herrera with his name in the background. 

At the end, someone asked Herrera "What’s the next step for Chicanos?" Herrera answers: “It’s our dedication to assist others." The cause for rights for Chicanx people is never over, and we must allow the movement to blossom, and "we have to generate in ourselves the freedom of thought."

Thank you to the SDSU Chicana & Chicano Studies for making this event possible, and we all thank Juan Felipe Herrera for such an amazing and inspiring event.

 -SS

Reading for Boys and Girls, Or the Legitimacy of Girliness

First, a quick announcement that, for the Fall 2013 semester, the NCSCL is offering tutoring to undergraduates taking children's lit courses at SDSU. The scheduled hours are Mon 2-3 pm and Wed 11:45-12:45 pm, but students can also request appointments by emailing NCSChildlit@gmail.com. They MUST include "tutoring" in the subject line.

So, last year I was perusing some book review blogs, and came across one (author and title have since escaped me, lucky for them) that completely turned me off because the story and the review clearly typecasted girls into the role of princesses and boys into the role of adventurers. I distinctly recall the marketing on the website as speaking to the gender-inclusive merits of the book, something that could appeal to both boys and girls. I also distinctly recall that I was most annoyed by the fact that girls were evidently not meant to seek out wild and crazy adventures; those activities were reserved for boys!

Now, we all know that isn't true. Girls are as much adventure-driven as the young lads are. We have a whole new genre of dystopian Young Adult books that speak to this very call for girls to get out there and be fierce. I've pointed out the discussion this has spawned in previous posts, highlighting the underlying issue that these young women aren't out there by choice but by necessity. So, the adventure and thrill seeking young girl seems to linger only on the outskirts of identity, once more.

But instead of focusing on that, let's focus on the girlhood and boyhood culture that emerges with the kinds of treatment we give children, the kinds of stories we feed them at an early age, and the kinds of messages that unfold. This article on Book Riot addresses that problem: what we have taken for granted as typical girl and boy behavior, and how we both foster and address that.  The picture book that troubled me, the one speaking to the "inherent princess qualities" of girls, fits directly into this mold. And this branding transcends books of course; it pervades all arenas of material culture and media.

BUT, oh man, here is that irritating conjunction, come in to thwart my mental processes. Should we instead overlook -- even negate -- the girliness of girlhood? Is that the answer? Quite a while back I discussed the issue of cuteness studies. When considering that in comparison to girliness, we see that the status of the female does always come into question during the classification of "worthwhile" literature, children's, young adult, or adult. Is something only valid if it doesn't appeal to the feminine qualities? What message do we send if we only give credence to gender-role-dismantling texts? It only takes a quick discerning eye to notice that this need to upend what we consider the weaknesses of gender usually applies to the weaknesses and flaws of femininity in children's lit. We expect girls to be readers, but expect that the most successful depictions of girls they read should show girls NOT being girls. We expect boys to repel from books, so the books cultivated for them should appeal to that same interpreted boyishness.

Does this have to be the case? The princess should be a swashbuckler, if she so chooses, and it shouldn't be seen as an anomaly to her "kind" nor a proclamation that only now is she "worthwhile" by doing so. 

Publishing Response to Sandy Hook

As an offshoot of Alya's post from Monday, I wanted to share this short piece from Publishers Weekly. The article highlights the books and other goods that publishers and bookstore owners are sending to Newtown. In particular, Tanglewood Publishing is donating hundreds of copies of Audrey Penn's The Kissing Hand, which focuses on the great leap young children take when separating from their parents to go to school.

From Publishers Weekly:

"Kim Pescatelli, a Connecticut mother and knitter, knew that many schools use Audrey Penn’s The Kissing Hand (Tanglewood Books) in kindergarten to help ease children’s anxiety about being separated from their family during the school day. Her idea: to give a copy of the book along with a pair of Kissing Hand mittens with hearts on the palm to children in Newtown." Read the rest of the article here.

Thoughtful Pieces on Coping and Helping Children

The tragic events last Friday at Sandy Hook Elementary School have left a cold numbness on everyone's hearts and minds. As a graduate student of children's literature, I feel a pang whenever I glance at my children's books--part of why I pursue this is because of the light these stories bring to kids, the excitement, amazement, and comfort they glean from these silly and not-so-silly books.  As such, I particularly appreciated this article on the Huffington Post, about the comfort and strength reading offers in times of trauma. I especially think using children's books to help kids cope--be it focusing on loss, heroes, or families--enables them to connect their emotions more easily to positivity and hope.

Two other thoughtful pieces on how to guide children through a traumatic experience can be found on:
Educating Alice
The Moving Castle

San Diego City College Book Fair Begins October 1

The 7th Annual San Diego City College International Book Fair will be held October 1 - 6, 2012.

The weeklong celebration of books includes talks and readings that are free and open to the public. Coinciding with Banned Books Week, the Book Fair will also feature talks about and readings from several banned books, including a reading and signing by SDSU grad and young adult writer Matt de la Peña.

Check out the full schedule of programming here.

Infinity and the Brain: The Study of Close Reading and Pleasure Reading

As a former Engineering student (yes, somehow I climbed out of the wilderness of mathematical functions to dwell in the jungle of literature) I positively glow reading about scientific research and discoveries every now and then, and never does it resonate more than when applied to reading or literature. I certainly don't feel that Literature (Children's or otherwise) needs to be legitimized scientifically, but recognizing the interdisciplinary qualities – the brilliant junctions of crossing boundaries – that can emerge from Literary studies fascinates me and reveals the limitless potential of understanding humanness.  We see this when scientific thoughts and theories feature prominently in books – consider the beautifully crafted Infinity and Me by Kate Hosford (author) and Gabi Swiatkowska (illustrator), where the abstract notion of "forever" is plowed through by a young girl until she learns to humanize and bring meaning to it. Check out the blog Seven Impossible Things before Breakfast for an insightful review of the book.

So what of reversing the role, placing Literature into the scientific realm instead? In an article posted today by Laura Miller on the news web magazine Salon, "Your brain loves Jane Austen," Miller speaks with Natalie Phillips, assistant English professor at Michigan State University, about a number of studies she is conducting examining the differences in brain functionality when reading for study and for pleasure. Touching on the enlightening discoveries they have already encountered, Phillips explains, "Pleasure reading has its own demands and close reading has its own pleasures. The value resides in being able to shift between modes. It’s a training in cognitive flexibility."  She also describes, among other things, why they would choose Jane Austen's Mansfield Park as their first source of material.

Reading the interview, you concretely see that the way we read literature effects us in ways we never considered.  I look forward to learning what new findings develop from this. I suggest in the next round of tests, they employ children's books, as I am sure the intellectual and emotional response is going to reveal further variances of brain activity, and may contribute to the discussion of how books can be used in different arenas.