The shifting 'canon' of multicultural lit
It's not easy to assemble a reading list of books dealing with racial discrimination. For many years, for instance, "To Kill a Mockingbird" by Harper Lee had an unquestioned place in classrooms. The 1960 Pulitzer Prize-winning novel portrays the trial of a black man in a southern town and offers an unqualified condemnation of racism. Yet today, some say it is patronizing. The writer is white, the narrator is white, and a noble (and educated) white man defends an innocent (but uneducated) black man.
Recently, memoirs have become popular. Students are often drawn to books like "Down These Mean Streets," by Piri Thomas, the true story of a Puerto Rican growing up in East Harlem who struggles as he learns what it means to have black skin in America. But many parents object to the book's tales of drug use and homosexual prostitutes.
Despite these difficulties, teachers are working hard to craft reading lists. Here is a sampling of literature that teachers use in their classrooms today.
Classics that are now often challenged:
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
by Mark Twain
(1885)
To Kill a Mockingbird
by Harper Lee
(1960)
Black Like Me
by John Howard Griffin
(1960)
Sounder
by William Howard Armstrong
(1969)
Works considered classics today, but once challenged:
Native Son
(1940)
Black Boy
(1945)
by Richard Wright
Anne Frank: The Diary of a Young Girl
(1952)
Invisible Man
by Ralph Ellison
(1952)
A Raisin in the Sun
by Lorraine Hansberry
(1959)
Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee
by Dee Brown
(1970)
'New classics' on black-white relations, by black writers:
Beloved
by Toni Morrison
(1987)
I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings
by Maya Angelou
(1970)
Their Eyes Were Watching God
by Zora Neale Hurston
(1937, 'rediscovered' in the late '60s)
First-person nonfiction accounts by black authors:
Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, An American Slave
(1845)
The AutoBiography of Malcolm X
(1964)
Manchild in the Promised Land
by Claude Brown
(1965)
Down These Mean Streets
by Piri Thomas
(1967)
Black Ice by Lorene Carey
(1972)
Kaffir Boy
by Mark Mathabane
(1989)
Gifted Hands
by Ben Carson with Cecil Murphy
(1990)
Makes Me Wanna Holler
by Nathan McCall
(1994)
Books focusing on struggles over racial identity as experienced by various racial and ethnic groups:
Farewell to Manzanar
by Jeannie Houston and James Houston
(1983)
The Joy Luck Club
by Amy Tan
(1989)
Woman Hollering Creek and other stories
by Sandra Cisneros
(1991)
Always Running: La Vida Loca, Gang Days in L.A.
by Luis T. Rodriquez
(1993)
An American Brat
by Bapsi Sidwha
(1993)
Monkey Bridge
by Lan Cao
(1997)
The Circuit: Stories from the Life of a Migrant Child
by Francisco Jiminez
(1997)
The Bean Trees
(1988)
by Barbara Kingsolver
Books for young children:
Amazing Grace
by Mary Hoffman
(1991)
My Folks Don't Want Me to Talk About Slavery
by Belinda Hurmence
(1984)
In a Circle Long Ago: A Treasury of Native Lore from north Americas
Retold by Nancy Van Laan
(1995)
Books that are being reexamined for their potential to address race:
Uncle Tom's Cabin
by Harriet Beecher Stowe
(1852)
Moby-Dick
by Herman Melville
(1851)
Works that pair well with Shakespeare:
The Outsiders
by S.E. Hinton
(1967)
("Julius Caesar")
Crews
by Maria Hinojosa
(1995)
("Romeo and Juliet")
Fences
August Wilson
(1987)
("King Lear")
Anthologies/ resource books:
Welcome to Your Life: Writings for the Heart of Young America
edited by David Haynes and Julie Landsman
(1998)
American Dragons: Twenty-five Asian American Voices
edited by Lawrence Yep
(1995)
Dealing with Differences: Taking Action on Class, Race, Gender, and disability
by Angele Ellis and Marilyn Llewellyn
(1997)
Coming of Age in America
edited by Mary Frosch
(1994)
Online resources:
http://www.phila.k12.pa.us/teachers/frameworks/ccc/index.htm
(Links to bibliographies and lesson plans created by specialists in the School District of Philadelphia)
http://falcon.jmu.edu/~ramseyil/asialit.htm
(Asian-American literature)
http://www.enc.org/topics/equity/articles/documents/
0,1946,ACQ-111402-1402,00.shtm
(Hispanic culture and children's literature)
http://lfkhome.northstarnet.org/ArabFic.html
(Annotated bibliography of Arab fiction)
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