Established in 2006 by Dr. Debbie Reese of Nambé Pueblo, American Indians in Children's Literature (AICL) provides critical analysis of Indigenous peoples in children's and young adult books. Dr. Jean Mendoza joined AICL as a co-editor in 2016.
I picked up Melanie Florence's Stolen Words with a bit of trepidation because her previous picture book, Missing Nimama, was so troubling. It, and her novel, The Missing, felt off. (Here's my post about them.)
At the time, I couldn't put my finger on why her books were unsettling. Some time after reading the two books, there was a writing contest in Canada. Florence supplied the prompt for it. When I read the prompt, I understood why I had so much trouble with those two books. Rather than holding people with care, she seemed to be using people who had been through traumatic loss as subjects for her writing. Some might say that she's a good writer and that she writes in compelling ways, but rather than moved, I felt manipulated.
With that as background, I am here today with my thoughts on Stolen Words.
****
Imagine. That's what writers do. They imagine a place, a time, and the people of that place and time.
It is very hard to do well, especially when the writer is crossing into a place and time that is not their own, where every word they write is drawn from that imagining.
On her website, Melanie Florence writes that she's Cree/Scottish. She also writes that she never had the chance to talk with her grandfather about his Cree heritage and that Stolen Words is about a relationship she imagines she had been able to have with him. In other words, she didn't grow up as a Cree person. She didn't grow up in a Cree community. Without a tangible connection to Cree people, the risk that we have a story that is more like something a Scottish person would write, is very high.
Stolen Words opens with a seven-year-old girl skipping and dancing on her way home from school. She is holding a dream catcher that "she had made from odds and ends. Bits of strings. Plastic beads. And brightly colored feathers." Apparently that was a craft project at school. Why, I wonder, were they making dream catchers at school?
As she walks home with her grandfather, she asks him how to say grandfather in Cree. He doesn't remember how to say it, he tells her, sadly. "I lost my words" he says. She asks "how do you lose words" to which he replies that "they took them away." Her subsequent questions build on the answer her grandfather gives to the previous one. Slowly we read that he was at a residential school. Their words, he says, were taken to the same place he and other children were taken away from home and from their mothers. When asked who took them away, he replies that it was "men and women dressed in black" who locked their words away and punished them if they used those words. The illustration for this part of the story shows a group of children. Thin ribbon like streams flow from their open mouths and take shape in the form of a raven that is being captured in a bird cage by a priest:
Source: https://goo.gl/MSvs2R
I was describing that scene to Jean Mendoza. She said it sounds a lot like the scene in Disney's The Little Mermaid when Ursula takes Ariel's voice from her. Jean's right! It is a lot like that--and therein I come to my greatest concerns with Stolen Words. It is more like a fairy tale than a story about what happened to Native children in the residential schools.
After that, we see the little girl's grandfather in tears. She touches his "weathered" face and tries to wipe away his sadness. She gives him the dream catcher and says she hopes it will help him find his words again, but in fact, it is she who helps him--which dovetails nicely with the fairy tale treatment of the brutal realities of the schools.
The next day when he meets her after school, she's got a worn paperback in hand. She greets him with "Tanisi, nimosom" and tells him that she found his words in a book titled Introduction to Cree that was in her school library. There may, in fact, be a locally published Introduction to Cree somewhere, but I was surprised by this page in the story. It is plausible that such a book would be in the school library, but it feels like a pretty big stretch. We're in fairy tale land, again.
Turning the "much-loved pages" her grandfather finds the word for granddaughter and whispers it. Kind of magical, isn't it? Florence writes that "The word felt familiar in his mouth." The word felt like his home and like his mother.
Pretty words, for sure, that mightily pull on heart strings. In the next illustration he is holding the book to a page where there's a bird cage like the one we saw above. This time, though, ravens are flying out of the cage and a few pages later, we have a happy fairy tale ending, with the two walking together.
Need I say that I intensely dislike Stolen Words? The words and the art exploit readers and turn something that was very painful and genocidal into a fairy tale. For the most part, Florence's storytelling is working on White readers. It is getting starred reviews that it does not deserve. I find this book much like A Fine Dessertwith its happy slaves hiding in a cupboard.
Stolen Words by Melanie Florence is much like
A Fine Dessert with its happy slaves hiding in a cupboard.
For another critical look at Stolen Words, see Ann Clare Le Zotte's twitter thread on November 22, 2017.
As citizens of the US and Canada learn about the boarding and residential schools that were designed to 'kill the Indian and save the man' we need stories that do justice to the experiences of the children who were in those schools. Because of growing awareness of the schools, we will see writers use them as a topic. That is fine but they must be done with care and respect. Melanie Florence doesn't give us that care or respect. She's given us a fairy tale. The characters aren't real. There was, and is, no magical happy ending. We all deserve better than that, and I implore writers, editors, reviewers, and teachers to keep that in mind.
If I was clever I might come up with some way to critique her chosen title, too. Overall the book feels like a theft, like she's robbed Native people who do not have to imagine--as she did--what this experience was like.
Published in 2017 by Second Story Press, I do not recommend Melanie Florence's Stolen Words.
It has been a landmark year in children's literature. I don't mean the calendar year of 2016. I mean the year marked by August 4th, 2015 and August 4th, 2016, where depictions of African Americans in two picture books and one young adult novel were the subject of conversations that prompted responses from their creators, editors, or publishers.
August 4th, 2015
Elisa Gall, librarian, posted her concerns about problems in A Fine Dessert. November 1st, 2015
Emily Jenkins, the author of A Fine Dessert issued an apology (scroll down; her apology is the 9th comment, submitted on Nov 1 at 9:48 AM).
January 4, 2016
Vicky Smith, editor at Kirkus, pointed to the forthcoming A Birthday Cake for George Washington.
January 17, 2016
Scholastic, publisher of A Birthday Cake for George Washington, announced they were stopping the distribution of the book and that people could get a refund for it if they'd already purchased it.
July 21, 2016
KT Horning, director of the Cooperative Children's Book Center at the University of Wisconsin, gave a lecture in School Library Journal's summer course designed to increase their reviewers skills in recognizing problematic depictions. In it she spoke at length about When We Was Fierce.
August 4th, 2016
Kelly, an editor at Book Riot, tweeted that she'd received an email from Candlewick (publisher of When We Was Fierce) indicating that the book, scheduled for release on August 9th, was being postponed.
I attribute this year to the power of social media. With its many platforms for reaching a wider audience than was possible before, more people are reading, listening--or rather, hearing--and responding. I hope this marks lasting change. We've been here before, many times. In the 1960s, for example, the people at the Council on Interracial Books for Children, pushed publishers very hard. What we've seen in this past year, however, is unprecedented, and I believe it speaks to the power of speaking back to misrepresentations.
Editors Note on Feb 25, 2018: Please see my apology about promoting Alexie's work. --Debbie
~~~~
As I continue thinking about Sherman Alexie's Thunder Boy Jr., I wonder about the responsibility of the editorial team. Back when A Fine Dessert was published, some people pointed out that the editorial team has responsibilities, too, for the book. Some argued that, in the end, the author and illustrator have final responsibility because their names are on the book. Others countered that they don't have as much authority as one might think. This post is some of my thoughts on the role of the editor. Alexie writes primarily for adults. His name, books, and then his films (Smoke Signals and The Business of Fancydancing) were well known in Native circles. When he wrote The Absolutely True Diary of a Part Time Indian he became widely known in children's and young adult literature. In one interview, he said that Diary sold over a million copies. He heard from a lot of readers about how much that book mattered to them, and so, he wanted to do something similar for younger readers. Hence: Thunder Boy Jr. The first print run for Thunder Boy Jr. is 100,000 copies, which is rare for a picture book. The publisher is Little, Brown Books for Young Readers (they also published Diary). Their decision to print 100,000 copies tells us they expect the book to do well. Its status this morning as "#1 Best Seller" in the Children's Native American Books category at Amazon tells us they were right. As I noted yesterday, Alexie is making a lot of appearances. I assume the publisher is paying for all of that. Alexie's editor, Alvina Ling, is fully aware of the intense discussions in children's literature regarding the topic of diversity, racism, stereotyping, bias... all of that. She's steeped in the world of children's literature. I think--and I could be wrong--but I think Alvina knows that we're pushing very hard against monolithic images of Native peoples. Alexie may not know. When he talks about children's books, his go-to title is The Snowy Day by Ezra Jack Keats. That's a really old book. I've never seen Alexie speak or write about a children or young adult book about Native peoples written by a Native writer, so I wonder if he's aware of that particular body of literature? In The Absolutely True Diary of a Part Time Indian, we know which tribal nation his characters are from. Why is that information missing from Thunder Boy Jr.? Did he think it was too much information to include Thunder Boy's tribal affiliation in the story, somehow? Was he unable to figure out a way to do it without yanking readers out of the story? If he was writing with a Native reader in mind, did he think that specificity was unimportant?
If Alexie and his editor talked through all of that, I again end up at the place I was yesterday: an author's note would have been the place to address all of this.
It is possible that Alexie didn't know about author's notes in children's literature, but his author knows all about them and why they're important. Is the lack of one ultimately her error?
~~~~~
There is another framework to situate Alexie's book and choices within... There's a contentious conversation taking place amongst Native people, regarding enrollment or citizenship within a federally recognized tribe. Or--rather--the disenrollment of people who were formerly enrolled in those nations. Some weeks ago there was a hashtag campaign objecting to the disenrollments. You can read about it at Indian Country Today's article, 'Stop Disenrollment' Posts Get More than 100K Views.
Read, too, their story on Alexie's views on disenrollment: Sherman Alexie Gives Disenrollment the Bird. Is the lack of specificity his way of embracing kids whose families are being disenrolled?
No doubt, I'll be back with additional posts on Alexie's book. No book exists in a vacuum. It is in the world, being read by people who are also in the world.
I will be updating this page whenever I read something published in 2015. What it likely means is that a title will be added to the "Not Reviewed" list at the end, and when it is reviewed, it will be moved into the Recommended or Not Recommended list. Recommended (N=15)
Strayhorn, Willa (2015) The Way We Bared Our Souls. Published by Razorbill, an imprint of Penguin Random House.
Taylor-Butler, Christine. (2015) The Lost Tribes. Published by Move Books.
Valente, Catherynne M. (2015) Six Gun Snow White. Published by Subterranean Press.
Velasquez, Crystal. (2015) Hunters of Chaos. Published by Simon and Schuster.
White, Tara. (2015). Where I Belong. Published by Tradewind Books.
Not yet reviewed (N=20)
Bruchac, Joseph. (2015) Walking Two Worlds. Published by 7th Generation.
Bruchac, Joseph. (2015) Trail of the Dead. Published by Tu Books.
Burgan, Michael. (2015) Shadow Catcher: How Edgar S. Curtis Documented American Indian Dignity and Beauty. Published by Compass Point, an imprint of Capstone.
Coleman, Wim. (2015) Sequoyah and His Talking Leaves. Published by Red Chair Press.
Cooper, Karen Coody (2015) Woodchuck Visits Algonquian Cousins. Published by Soddenbank Press.
Florence, Melanie. (2015) Missing Nimama. Published by Clockwise Press.
George, Jean Craighead. (2015) Ice Whale. Published by Puffin Books.
Hicks, Nola Helen. (2015) Hurry Up, Ilua. Published by Inhabit Media.
Goble, Paul. (2015) Red Cloud's War. Published by Wisdom Tales.
Guest, Jacqueline. (2015) Fire Fight. Published by 7th Generation.
Kristofic, Jim. (2015) The Hero Twins: A Navajo-English Story of the Monster Slayers. Published by UNM Press.
London, Jonathan. (2015) Desolation Canyon. Published by West Winds Press.
Lumbard, Alexis York. (2015) Pine and the Winter Sparrow. Published by Wisdom Tales.
Revelle, Rick. (2015) Algonquin Spring. Published by Dundurn Press.
Robinson, Gary. (2015) Billy Buckhorn: Paranormal. Published by 7th Generation.
Schwartz, Simon. (2015) First Man: Reimagining Matthew Hensen. Published by Graphic Universe.
Silver, Sarah Dickson. (2015) Dream a Pony, Wake a Spirit: The Story of Buster, a Choctaw Pony Survivor. Published by Luminare Press.
Tripp, Analisa. (2015) A Is for Acorn: A California Indian ABC. Published by Heyday Books.
Williams-Garcia, Rita. (2015) Gone Crazy in Alabama. Published by Harper.
Zobel, Melissa Tantaquidgeon (2015) Wabanaki Blues. Published by Poisoned Pencil.
This is a list of books I read in 2015, sorted into categories of Recommended (total of 16), and Not Recommended (47 in all). As you see, it is not a list of books that came out in 2015. Grand total: 60 (and counting). There is one writer on the recommended list who is not Native (Daniel José Older) and one on the Not Recommended list who is Native (Tara White). Links go to my review on AICL, and some of the links go to my article at School Library Journal.
This is not a comprehensive list. There are books that I bought or received but wasn't able to read or finish writing up. One example is Ann Martin's Claudia and the First Thanksgiving. That's a book in the Babysitters Club series. It was one that will end up with a Recommended tag when I write it up.
White, Tara. (2015). Where I Belong. Published by Tradewind Books.
Wilder, Laura Ingalls. (1940) The Long Winter. Published by Harper and Row.
Wiles, Deborah. (2014) Revolution. Published by Scholastic.
Here's my Recommended/Not Recommended List for 2014. Last year, there were 26 books on the Recommended list, and 35 on the Not Recommended list. Grand total then: 61.
Those of us who study and share children's literature in classrooms and libraries have been using social media to share our astonishment at each new development with regard to A Birthday Cake for George Washington. We--and you, too, I gather--have watched these conversations take place outside of our relatively small community. That is a plus for us, and should be for you, too.
Personally and professionally, I welcome the critical eyes of those who object to the book.
I assume that your public relations office is keeping track of key developments. For the benefit of my readers, I've put together a brief timeline of the key points. I think the dates are correct. For a more comprehensive timeline, see here.
Wednesday, January 6
Scholastic released A Birthday Cake for George Washington.
On the same day, there was a statement on the Scholastic blog. Written by the book's editor, it explained the thinking that went into the book. The statement referenced discussions that took place in 2015 over A Fine Dessert (not published by Scholastic).
Friday, January 15
Scholastic released an unsigned statement on its blog, acknowledging the discussions online.
Sunday, January 17
Scholastic released an unsigned statement that it was stopping distribution of A Birthday Cake for George Washington. It said "We do not believe this title meets the standards of appropriate presentation of information to younger children..."
Friday, January 22
The National Coalition on Censorship (NCAC), the PEN American Center, and the American Society of Journalists and Authors issued a statement that cast Scholastic's decision as one of self-censorship.
Monday, January 25
Scholastic issued a statement saying that NCAC and PEN "did not correctly read" their statement about withdrawing the book. The decision, they state, is not due to the controversy over the book, but because "it does not meet the standards which support our publishing mission." It attributed the decision to CEO, Richard Robinson.
The statement also includes this paragraph:
In addition to engaging children with great stories, all of us at Scholastic have an important responsibility to ensure that our history—both the good and the bad--is portrayed accurately in a way children can understand, as we prepare the next generation of young people who are being raised on our books, classroom magazines and curriculum programs widely used in schools and homes.
Speaking as a scholar who studies portrayals of Native peoples in children's and young adult literature, I can say that you publish many books that do not meet the "portrayed accurately in a way children can understand" statement that I assume is part of the "standards" that prompted you to withdraw A Cake for George Washington.
My question, Mr. Robinson, is this: will you be withdrawing other books, too, for the same reasons?
On Twitter, I asked about a few you have in The Teacher Store pages. I've read and analyzed these ones. I know that they do not accurately portray Native peoples. Other scholars have written about their inaccuracies, too.
Hiawatha, illustrated by Susan Jeffers
Island of the Blue Dolphins, by Scott O'Dell
Touching Spirit Bear, by Ben Mikaelsen
Sign of the Beaver, by Elizabeth George Speare
The Girl Who Loved Wild Horses, by Paul Goble
Julie of the Wolves, by Jean Craighead George
Indian in the Cupboard, by Lynne Reid Banks
Stone Fox, by John Reynolds Gardiner
I also asked about your "Thanksgiving Feast Readers Theater Headbands and Play Script." I have no doubt that people mean well when they create and use these kinds of items, but they foster stereotypical thinking and encourage playing Indian in stereotypical ways.
Clearly, those headbands are meant to be used at Thanksgiving. That prompts me to say that I think you're failing to give young children an accurate picture of colonization.
I've seen a lot of smiling Indians in children's books that send the same message that the illustrations of smiling slaves send to readers: it wasn't that bad. Your statement tells me you know it was bad. Indeed, you called it evil, as you should. I agree. Slavery was evil.
The same is true about colonization and the genocidal policies of the early colonists and later, the men embraced as "Founding Fathers." I hope that your statement is an indication that you're convening meetings within the Scholastic offices and you're going to withdraw other books, too.
Is that, in fact, happening?
Sincerely,
Debbie Reese
American Indians in Children's Literature
___________________
Note: I sent a link to this letter to Kyle Good. She is listed as the contact person for the statement, as shown here:
Eds. Note: Please scroll to the bottom of this post to see links to discussions of A Birthday Cake for George Washington. The links are in two sets. The first is to items upon the release of the book. The second set is to items following Scholastic's decision to withdraw the book.
Back in November or December, I started to hear that people in children's literature were wondering what we (by we, I mean people who objected to the treatment of slavery in A Fine Dessert) would say about the smiling slaves in a book due out this year. That book, A Birthday Cake for George Washington, is out now.
It felt, then and now, too, like the people who think A Fine Dessert is ok were waiting to pounce on us. The line of reasoning is this: if the smiling slaves in A Fine Dessert were not ok, then, the smiling slaves in A Birthday Cake for George can't be ok, either. It seemed--and seems--that a test is being put forth. If we don't slam A Birthday Cake, then, our critiques of A Fine Dessert can be ignored.
That situation is disgusting.
A predominantly white institution filled with predominantly white people with hundreds of years of power to determine what gets published is waiting to pounce on people of color if they don't pounce on other people of color.
I ordered A Birthday Cake for George today. I'll study it. I may--or I may not--write about it.
What I want to focus on right now is power and the investment in that white narrative of the US and its history.
Smiling slaves in picture books that, in some way, depict slavery are a parallel to the smiling Indians in picture books set in colonial periods. Those smiles sell. They tell kids things weren't all that bad for those who lived in slavery or those whose communities were being attacked and decimated by those who wanted their land--in many instances--so they could turn those lands into plantations of... smiling slaves.
People in the US are so determined to ignore the ugly history of the US that they churn out narratives that give kids a rosy picture of US history.
I took a quick look this morning. It was easy to find smiling Indians in picture books for young children. Here's covers of two recent books:
That expectation that we have to throw the team that did A Cake for George Washington under the bus is (saying again) disgusting. Do Native and POC mess up? Yes, we do. We're human beings. Do we want Native and POC who create children's books to do right by our histories? Of course.
The fact is, we're peoples who've been through hell, and survived. Persisted. Indeed, we've thrived in spite of all that got--and gets--thrown our way time and time again.
In whatever ways we choose to write or speak about A Cake for George Washington, I think we'll be doing so from a space of care for each other, because publishing (and Hollywood, too) aren't all that welcoming of the things we want to give to children. Native and POC are, collectively, at a disadvantage. We face difficult decisions at every turn. Native actors need exposure so they can build profiles that give them power to impact what they do the next time, and what those behind them can do, too. Native writers and POC are in that same position. The stakes are high--no matter what one decides to do. Those stakes aren't necessarily the same for white actors, writers, and illustrators.
One of the most important children's books I've read is Simon Ortiz's The People Shall Continue. It is about working together so that we all continue, as people who care about each other. With that in mind, I think the ways that we respond and write about A Cake for George Washington may disappoint those who are waiting for our responses.
In an unprecedented move, Scholastic released a statement that they are withdrawing the book from distribution. The statement was released on Sunday, January 17. Here's the first paragraph of the statement:
Scholastic is announcing today that we are stopping the distribution of the book entitled A Birthday Cake for George Washington, by Ramin Ganeshram and illustrated by Vanessa Brantley-Newton, and will accept all returns. While we have great respect for the integrity and scholarship of the author, illustrator, and editor, we believe that, without more historical background on the evils of slavery than this book for younger children can provide, the book may give a false impression of the reality of the lives of slaves and therefore should be withdrawn.
Below are links to items specific to their decision. I am placing Ebony Elizabeth Thomas's Storify in a larger font because I believe it is the single most important response to #SlaveryWithASmile. Today (Jan 22) I am inserting Freeman Ng's page-by-page synopsis at the top of the set of links for those who wish to begin their reading with more information about the contents of the book.
Page-by-page synopsis with screen captures, of A Birthday Cake for George Washington, by Freeman Ng.
Jan 22, 2016. "#SlaveryWithASmile" podcast on the Ferguson Response Network; guests include Mikki Kendall, Roni Dean-Burren, Edith Campbell, and Allyson Criner Brown.
Jan 22, 2016. "It's Not Censorship" Storify by the Zinn Education Project, comprised primarily of Daniel José Older's responses to joint statement from the National Coalition of Censorship, the PEN American Center, and the American Society of Journalists and Authors.
Jan 22, 2016. "Take the cake." by Jamie LaRue at the American Library Association's Intellectual Freedom blog.
The book is no longer available at Amazon. See the last line in this screen capture, taken at 3:12 PM on January 18, 2016.
Around 4:00 PM on January 19, 2016, the price of the book on Amazon got a bit inflated. It went away pretty quickly. I doubt it sold. Someone at Amazon must have... removed the private seller's account.
Over the years, I've written about children's books that were revised.
A few days ago I compiled links about revised books (some are mine and some are from others who work in children's literature) and inserted them in my post about A Fine Dessert. Today, I'm putting them on a stand-alone page. If you know of other changes, do let me know. This set of links will eventually appear at Teaching for Change.
We are rarely told why these books were changed, and we're rarely told when the change itself is made. Some changes are no-change, really, because the ideology of the book (writer?) is still there, beneath the words that get changed. Some changes--like the ones in picture books--are significant. All of them are, nonetheless, important to know about.
Earlier this year, The Case for Loving: The Fight for Interracial Marriage, by Selina Alko, illustrated by Alko and Sean Qualls, was published by Arthur A. Levine Books. It got starred reviews from Kirkus and Publisher's Weekly. The reviewer at Horn Bookgave it a (2), which means the review was printed in The Horn Book Magazine.
The review from The New York Times and my review, were mixed, and as I'll describe later, may be the reasons revisions were made to the second printing of the book.
Let's start with the synopsis for The Case for Loving:
For most children these days it would come as a great shock to know that before 1967, they could not marry a person of a race different from their own. That was the year that the Supreme Court issued its decision in Loving v. Virginia.
This is the story of one brave family: Mildred Loving, Richard Perry Loving, and their three children. It is the story of how Mildred and Richard fell in love, and got married in Washington, D.C. But when they moved back to their hometown in Virginia, they were arrested (in dramatic fashion) for violating that state's laws against interracial marriage. The Lovings refused to allow their children to get the message that their parents' love was wrong and so they fought the unfair law, taking their case all the way to the Supreme Court - and won!
On Feb 6, 2015, TheNew York Times reviewer, Katheryn Russell-Brown, wrote:
Alko’s calm, fluid writing complements the simplicity of the Lovings’ wish — to be allowed to marry. Some of the wording, though, strikes a sour note. “Richard Loving was a good, caring man; he didn’t see differences,” she writes, suggesting, implausibly, that he did not notice Mildred’s race. After Mildred is identified as part black, part Cherokee, we are told that her race was less evident than her small size — that town folks mostly saw “how thin she was.” This language of colorblindness is at odds with a story about race. In fact, this story presents a wonderful chance to address the fact that noticing race is normal. It is treating people better or worse on the basis of that observation that is a problem.
And on March 18, 2015, I wrote a long review, focusing on Mildred Jeter's identity. I concluded with this:
In The Case for Loving, Alko uses "part African-American, part Cherokee" but I suspect Jeter's family would object to what Alko said. As the 2004 interview indicates, Mildred Jeter Loving considered herself to be Rappahannock. Her family identifies as Rappahannock and denies any Black heritage. This, Coleman writes, may be due to politics within the Rappahannock tribe. A 1995 amendment to its articles of incorporation states that stated (p. 166):
“Applicants possessing any Negro blood will not be admitted to membership. Any member marrying into the Negro race will automatically be admonished from membership in the Tribe.”
I'm not impugning Jeter or her family. It seems to me Mildred Jeter Loving was caught in some of the ugliest racial politics in the country. As I read Coleman's chapter and turn to the rest of her book, I am unsettled by that racial politics. In the final pages of the chapter, Coleman writes (p. 175):
"Of course, Mildred had a right to self-identify as she wished and to have that right respected by others. Nevertheless, viewed within the historical context of Virginia in general and Central Point in particular, ironically, “the couple that rocked courts” may have inadvertently had more in common with their opponents than they realized. Mildred’s Indian identity as inscribed on her marriage certificate and her marriage to Richard, a White man, appears to have been more of an endorsement of the tenets of racial purity rather than a validation of White/ Black intermarriage as many have supposed."
Turning back to The Case for Loving, I pick it up and read it again, mentally replacing Cherokee with Rappahannock and holding all this racial politics in my head. It makes a difference.
At this moment, I don't know what it means for this picture book. One could argue that it provides children with an important story about history, but I can also imagine children looking back on it as they grow up and thinking that they were misinformed--not deliberately--but by those twists and turns in racial politics in the United States of America.
Fast forward to last week (November 4, 2015), when I learned that changes were made to The Case for Loving in its second printing. Here's a photo of the copyright page for the two books. Look at the second line from the bottom in the top image. See the string of numbers that starts at 10 and goes on down to 1? That string is data. The lowest numeral in the string is 1, which tells us that the book with the 1 is the original. Now look at the second line from the bottom in the bottom image. See the string of numbers ends with numeral 2? That tells us that is the 2nd printing.
I learned about the second printing by watching Daniel Jose Older's video, Full Panel: Lens of Diversity: It is Not All in What You See. Sean Qualls, illustrator of The Case for Loving was also on that panel, which was slated as an opportunity to talk about Rudine Sims Bishop's idea of literature as windows, mirrors, and doors, framed around Sophie Blackall's art for the New York public transit system. The moderator and panel organizer, Susannah Richards, said that she saw people using social media to say that they thought they say themselves in Blackall's art. (To read more about the discussions of Blackall's picture book, A Fine Dessert, see Not recommended: A Fine Dessert.)
At approximately the 34:00 minute mark in Older's video, Richards began to speak about The Case for Loving and how Qualls and Alko addressed concerns about the book. Richards had a power point slide ready comparing a page in the original book with a page in the revised edition. It is similar to the one I have here (in her slide, she has the revised version at the top and the original on the bottom):
Qualls said "So, part of what happened is... There is a page with a description of Mildred and Richard." Qualls then read the revised page and the original one, too: "Richard was a tall quiet man with fair skin and broad shoulders. The person he loved most was Mildred Jeter. Mildred was part African-American, part Native American, and she was thin as a rail; that's how she got the nickname, String Bean. Richard Loving was a good, caring man; he didn't see differences. There was one person Richard loved more than the rest. Mildred Jeter was part African-American, part Cherokee, but what most folks in Central Point noticed was how thin she was; that's how she got the nickname, "String Bean."
Reese's photo of original (on top) and revised (on bottom) page in THE CASE FOR LOVING
For now, I'm going to step away from the video and Quall's remarks in order to compare the original lines on the page with the revised ones:
(1)
Original: Richard Loving was a good, caring man; he didn't see differences.
Revision: Richard Loving was a tall, quiet man with fair skin and broad shoulders.
See that change? "he didn't see differences" is gone. This, I think, is the result of Russell-Brown (of the Times) saying that him not seeing difference was implausible, especially since this book is about race.
(2)
Original: There was one person Richard loved more than the rest.
Revision: The person he loved most was Mildred Jeter.
I don't know what that sentence was changed, and welcome your thoughts on it.
(3)
Original: Mildred Jeter was part African-American, part Cherokee...
Revision: Mildred was part African-American, part Native American...
In my review back in March, I said it was wrong to describe her as being part Cherokee, because on the application for a marriage license (dated May 24, 1958), she stated she was Indian. I assume the change to "Native American" rather than "Indian" was done because the person(s) weighing in on the change thought that "Indian" was pejorative. It can be, depending on how it is used, but I use it in the name of my site and it is used by national associations, too, like the National Congress of American Indians or the National Indian Education Association or the American Indian Library Association.
I think it would have been better to use Indian--and nothing else--because that is what Jeter used. "Native American" didn't come into use until the 1970s, as indicated at the Bureau of Indian Affairs website and other sources I checked. In order to tell this story as determined by the Supreme Court case, Alko and Qualls had to include "part African American" because that is the basis on which the case went to the Supreme Court in the first place. I'll say more about all of this below.
(4)
Original: ...but what most folks in Central Point noticed was how thin she was;
Revision: ...and she was thin as a rail;
I think this change is similar to (1). People do notice race.
(5)
Original: ...that's how she got the nickname, "String Bean."
Revision: ...that's how she got the nickname, "String Bean."
No change there, which is fine.
~~~~~~~~~
Now I want to return to the video, and look more closely at (3) -- how Alko and Qualls describe Jeter.
After reading aloud the original and revised passage, Qualls paused. The moderator, Susannah Richards, stepped in. Here's a transcript:
Richards: "Research is complicated, and in researching this particular book, and looking... And even having some of my law friends look at it, they were like 'well some things say she was Cherokee and some things say she was wasn't, some things say her birth certificate said this,' and... There was just a lot of information out there."
Qualls: "Right. And I think that Deborah..."
Richards: "Debbie Reese."
Qualls: "Debbie Reese..."
Richards: "Who many of you may follow on her blog."
Qualls: "Really brought issue with the Cherokee description of Mildred, and, I have spoken to at least some family members and no one really seems to know whether she was Cherokee or Rappahannock. And I think there are some... Debbie Reese may have said, or somewhere I read, that Mildred claimed not to have any African American heritage. But then I've also read that the Rappahannock Nation is less likely to recognize someone as Rappahannock if they claim to have any African American heritage. We're also talking about the 1950s and 1960s where it may have been convenient for someone to claim that they had no African American heritage. James Brown, of all people, claimed he was part Japanese, part Native American, and had no African American heritage. So, it is extremely loaded, and yeah, you know, I really don't know what to say about it. And, it comes down to ones intention, and you know, in trying to represent diversity, and the fact is, no one really knows what her back ground was. I believe that she was part African American. My gut tells me that. She looks that way, she feels that way when I see her, when I see videos of her. So, yeah, that became a little bit of a controversy and was very disturbing to my wife, who is Canadian in origin, and the fact that you're Australian, you know, its very interesting. There are two people that I know that include and have always included African Americans in their art, and without question, that's really important, I think.
Qualls is right, of course. I did raise a question about them identifying Jeter as Cherokee.
I'm curious about his next comment, that he has spoken to family members who say that no one really knows whether she was Cherokee or Rappahannock. In my review, I quoted Coleman's 2004 interview of Jeter, in which she said "I am not Black. I have no Black ancestry. I am Indian-Rappahannock." I didn't include this passage (below) but am including it now--not as a deliberate attempt to argue with Qualls--but because I am committed to helping people understand Native nationhood and how Native people speak of their identity. Coleman writes (p. 173):
The American Indian identity is strong within the Loving family as demonstrated by Mildred’s grandson, Marc Fortune, the son of her daughter Peggy Loving Fortune. When Mildred Loving’s son, Donald, died unexpectedly on August 31, 2000, Marc, according to one attendee, arrived at his uncle’s funeral dressed in native regalia and performed a “traditional Rappahannock” ritual in honor of his deceased uncle. In fact, all of the Loving children are identified as Indian on their marriage licenses. During an interview on April 10, 2011, Peggy Loving stated that she is “full Indian.” This was also the testimony of her uncle, Lewis Jeter, Mildred’s brother who stated during an interview on July, 20, 2011, that the family was Indian and not Black. Echoing his sister’s words he stated, “We have no Black ancestry that I know of.”
Based on all I've read and many conversations with people who do not understand the significance of saying you're a member or citizen of a specific tribe, here's what I think is going on.
In watching videos of Jeter, Qualls said that he believes Jeter was part African American. In the video, he said "She looks that way, she feels that way when I see her, when I see videos of her." He is basing that, I believe, on her physical appearance rather than on her own words about her citizenship in the Rappahannock Nation. Qualls is conflating a racial identity with a political one.
I'm not critical of Qualls for thinking that way. I think most Americans would think and say the same thing he did. That is because Native Nationhood is not taught in schools. It should be, and it should be part of children's books, too, because our membership or citizenship in our nations is a fact of who we are. Indeed, it is the most significant characteristic of who we are, collectively. It is why our ancestors made treaties with leaders of other nations. It is why we, today, have jurisdiction of our homelands.
All across the U.S., there are peoples of varying physical appearance who are citizens of a Native nation. My paternal grandfather is white. He was not a tribal member. My dad and my uncle are tribal members. Myself and my siblings, though we range in appearance (I have the darkest hair and skin tone amongst us), are all tribal members. On the federal census, we say we're tribal members and we specify our nation as Nambe Pueblo. Our political identity is a Native one. Because of our grandfather, some of us look like we're mixed bloods, because we are, but when asked, we say we are tribal members, and we say that, too, on the U.S. census documents. We were raised at Nambe and we participate in a range of tribally-specific activities, from ceremonies to civic functions such as community work days and elections. What we look like, physically, is not important.
In short, the revision regarding Jeter's identity is based on a physical description rather than a political one. My speculation: the author, illustrator, and their editor do not know enough about Native nationhood to understand why that distinction matters.
Now let's take a look at the content of the reviews.
The reviewers at School Library Journal, Kirkusechoed the book, saying that Mildred was African American and Cherokee. The reviewer at Publisher's Weekly did not say anything about her identity. Horn Book's reviewer said "Richard Loving (white) and Mildred Jeter (black) fell in love and married..." Not surprisingly, then, that the Horn Book reviewer tagged it with "African Americans" as a subject, and not Native American, but I'm curious why they ignored her Native identity? Did they choose to view the Loving case as one about interracial marriage between a White man and Black woman--as the Loving's lawyers did? Perhaps.
In Older's video, he says that there are some stories that he wouldn't touch. I think the Loving case is one that is more complicated than a picture book for young children can do justice to. Here's key points, from my point of view:
In the 1950s, Mildred Jeter said she was Indian. We don't know if she said that out of a desire to avoid being discriminated against, or if she said that because she was already living her life as one in which she firmly identified as being Indian. Either way, it is what she said about who she was on the application for a marriage license.
In the 1960s, because Mildred Jeter and Richard Loving's marriage violated miscegenation laws, their case went before the Supreme Court of the United States. To most effectively present their case, the emphasis was on her being Black.
In the 2000s, Jeter and her children said they are Indian, and specified Rappahannock as their nation.
In the 2000s, Alko and Qualls met and fell in love.
In the 2010s, Alko and Qualls worked together on a picture book about the Lovings. In the author's note for The Case for Loving, Alko said that she's a white Jewish woman from Canada, and that Sean is an African American man from New Jersey. She said that much of her work is about inclusion and diversity and that it is difficult for her to imagine that just decades ago, couples like theirs were told by their governments, that their love was not lawful. For years, Alko writes, she and Qualls had thought about illustrating a book together. The Case for Loving is that book.
I think it is fair to say that the love they have for each other was a key factor in the work they did on The Case for Loving, but who they are is not who the Lovings were. That fact meant they could not--and can not--see Mildred for who she is.
My husband and I are also a couple in an interracial marriage. He's White; I'm Native. If we were an author/illustrator couple working in children's books and wanted to do a story about the Lovings, we'd enter it from a different place of knowing. We both know the importance of Native nationhood and the significance of Nambe's status as a sovereign nation. He didn't know much about Native people until he started teaching at Santa Fe Indian School, where we met in 1988 when I started teaching there. What we do not have is a lived experience or knowledge of the life of Mildred Jeter as she lived her life in the 1950s in Virginia. We'd be doing a lot of research in order to do justice to who she was.
At the end of his remarks (in the video) about The Case for Loving, Qualls said that it comes down to intentions, and that his wife and Sophie Blackall are very careful to include diversity in their work. He said he thinks it is important. I don't think anyone would disagree with that statement. Diversity is important. But, as his other remarks indicate, he's since learned how complicated the discussion of Jeter's identity were, then and now, too. They've revised that page in the book but as you may surmise, I think the revision is still a problem.
I like the art very much and think it is important for young children to know about the Lovings and families in which the parents are of two different demographics. I'll give some thought to how it could be revised so that it sets the record straight, and I welcome your thoughts (and do always let me know--as usual--about typos or parts of what I've said that lack clarity or are confusing).
Pick up a copy of That the Blood Stay Pure: African Americans, Native Americans, and the Predicament of Race and Identity in Virginia, published in 2013 by Indiana University Press. Read the chapter on the Lovings, and read Alko and Qualls and see what you think. Can it be revised again? How?
