"Separate is Never Equal -- Sylvia Mendez & Her Family's Fight for Desegregation"
by Duncan Tonatiuh
About the Author
Tonatiuh is a well-known Mexican American author and has written many books such as such as Warrior, Funny Bones, and Separate is Never Equal.
Tonatiuh grew up in San Miguel de Allende, Mexico. Driven by his love for depicting stories of the past for children, he later went to school with at the University of Parsons School of Design in New York City.
Today, most of his illustrations in his books are inspired by Pre-Columbian artworks. As he hopes to capture and honor events and people of the past, and making these historical ideas relevant to his readers (especially for children) today. For more information about Duncan Tonatiuh check out his blog here!
Can I Touch Your Hair? By Irene Latham, Charles Waters, Sean Quala & Selina Alko
After reading this book, I absolutely love everything about the book. I think Irene Latham, Charles Waters, Sean Qualls & Selina Alko did an amazing job with incorporating cultural narratives within a poetic text.
The poems in this text address the characters' viewpoints about each other as well as how they view the world around as being 'black and white'. This 'black and white' perspective is what only allows Irene and Charles to notice and identify each others' differences. However, as they begin to work on this poem project together, they soon discover that they are not as different as they thought.
I think the purpose of this text is meant to disrupt the ideas of a 'black and white' world -- a world where we only view each other's differences and associate those differences with stereotypes made up by the society we live in. More importantly, this book address our cultural lenses in how we view others. Meaning, sometimes it is our cultural lenses that prevent us from seeing the world differently because we are told by our parents and society that the world is only 'black and white'. Both, Irene and Charles face this same problem as they try to see the world a bit differently, but their parents try to persuade them otherwise.
For instance, when Charles recently became vegan and his father is upset by this because he says that "soul food (e.g. fried chicken, mash potatoes, baked macaroni and cheese) is our history." However, Charles doesn't see it this way. In his mind, this so called 'soul food' is a label that society has as placed on their community, thus allowing others to assume that every African American eats this kind of food. But not Charles.
This idea leads lead me to my next point, that this text's purpose is to not only address stereotypes of others but to also disrupt stereotypes. For example, when Charles, an African American boy states that he is vegan. By disrupting these stereotypes, that authors are able to teach readers the 'harm' of only viewing the world as black and white. More importantly, the authors helps their readers to understand the importance of listening to others, instead of only just seeing them through our cultural lenses. Because only then will be able to view the world differently, and see that we are not all so different from each other after all.
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References
Latham, I., Waters, C., Qualls, S., & Alko, S. (2018). Can I touch your hair? : poems of race, mistakes, and friendship. Carolrhoda Books. Print.
Tonatiuh, D. (2014). Separate is never equal : Sylvia Mendez & her family’s fight for desegregation. Abrams Books for Young Readers. Print.