At a
recent multicultural roundtable attended by various leaders in multicultural
literature and education one of the debated questions was, who should write
multicultural literature?Many of
the participants felt strongly that only members of an ethnic group should
have ownership of the literature and be encourages to write the literature
and critique the literature written by others.According
to this viewpoint, on African Americans, for example, have the experience
and the perception to write authentically about theblack
experience.Others argued the viewpoint
that anyone who write sensitivity and does the required research into the
subject and the culture should be able to write about the culture.
Jane
Yolen maintains that demanding that only a person from a culture may write
about that culture is “creating a kind of literature apartheid.Think
of it: if I, a careful artist, am only allowed to write about the culture
I grew up in-Jewish, Manhattan, Virginia, and Westport, Connecticut, 1940's-1960s-
I could have written The Devil’s Arithmetic, but not The Passenger;
I could have created All Those Secrets of the World but not Piggins.I
could have made And Twelve Chinese Acrobats, but not The Emperors
and the Kite” (p.289).
Betsy
Hearne provides interesting thoughts about this issue in a recent article
in School Library Journal.Hearne
states:
What
defines authority in creating or evaluating picture-book folklore?A
well-read expert?Someone raised
in the culture represented by the story?Can
only members of an ethnic group truly represent the lore of the group?How
can we tell? By the name?The skin
color?Does the absence of an author
or artist’s photograph mean an African-American folktale has been adapted
by a WASP?If so, does that mean
a majority is ripping off a minority, or honoring it?Gracila
Italiano has addressed this controversy in a paper delivered at the 1992
Allerton Institute.
She underscores
the importance of knowing a cultural tradition, from the standpoint of
both experience and study, over the formal qualifications of being a card-carrying
member of a culture.At the same
conference Hazel Rochman argued eloquently against the misconception the
“only Indians an really judge books about Indians, Jews about Jews...Locking
us into smaller and tighter boxes” (p.34).
As you
read Hearn’s questions and concerns, ask yourself the same questions.What
is your viewpoint on this important issue? What should be the qualifications
of a person writing about a culture or evaluating the books written about
that culture?Who should write and
evaluate the books?What criteria
should you use when selecting and evaluating the books about a culture
that is differentfrom your own?