This latest entry in the anti-CRT book-banning series shows that it is not just Latino books that are being whitewashed or suppressed for daring to share stories and experiences that inconveniently counter the myths of a small but aggressive minority of Americans who want to control what books are available in public schools and libraries.
Kelly Yang’s Front Desk, an award-winning novel that received star reviews from Kirkus, Bulletin for the Center of Children’s Books, School Library Journal, and Booklist, tells of ten-year-old Chinese immigrant Mia Tang, the protagonist-narrator, and her experiences in 1990s America. Her parents, professionals in China, came to the United States with just a couple hundred dollars to provide a better life for Mia because “it’s freer here” (4). The family builds a new life running a small motel at which they are the only staff, paid poverty-level wages for round-the-clock responsibilities. They risk what little they have helping other immigrants stay secretly in the motel when in need. Mia struggles to make friends and to find her voice in a new language. Despite her mother’s warnings that she is a “bicycle” in English compared to her white classmates’ “car” status (145), Mia eventually wields surprising power to express her views and right wrongs through the letters she writes.
Based on the author’s own childhood experiences, the novel has joined too many other diverse “mirror and window” books in facing censorship challenges because its presentation of America does not match the national vision some adults have. It appeared on the infamous banned books list from Central York High School in York, Pennsylvania, was specifically targeted when used as a read aloud book for a fifth-grade class in Plainedge School District in New York, and was removed from a Las Vegas school after being an approved part of the district’s fifth-grade curriculum. A section in which a Black man is wrongly arrested was especially offensive to the Plainedge parent who described the novel as “racially divisive” and “extremely divisive and controversial” and who was “shocked and disappointed that this ‘CRT’ book is part of Plainedge’s teachings.” The complainant’s letter goes on to delineate aspects of the book that go against the writer’s beliefs: books that “portray cops as racist, foster the notion of white supremacy or white privilege, teach that American is a racist country where all people are not equal.” Essentially, the divisiveness of the book was attributed to its teaching children “to see color.”
Certainly, the protagonist-narrator sees color in the society she enters, one that fails to live up to the myth her parents had told her about America, “this amazing place where we could live in a house with a dog, do whatever we want, and eat hamburgers till we were red in the face” (1), but a nation that the novel still depicts as basically good. Its ultimately positive, though balanced, views of America include acknowledgement that race plays a significant role in American culture. Mia notices race in her classmates and almost everyone she encounters, not to judge others but to acknowledge a visible part of their identity. The novel also shows that racism exists and is harmful. Several Asian characters suffer as a result of race-based stereotypes. Mia’s Taiwanese American classmate, Jason, is bullied at school by a group of kids, who are not identified by race, who twist his arm, taunting him with “Take that, Chinese dough boy!” and “That’s what you get for being a know-it-all” (42). A Chinese manicurist’s clients would complain about their Chinese maids, sharing the assumption that “they all steal” and not even seeing her or recognizing her humanity: “I was just a nail clipper to them,” she told Mia’s family (113). Popular girls in Mia’s class who usually tease or ignore her cheer about getting “the Chinese girl” on their math challenge team based on sterogypes (140); when she interprets a word problem differently than the teacher and fails to supply the “correct” answer, one of the girls states, “She’s not Chinese . . . . She’s ugly-nese” (141). Later that day, Mia places a banana peel over her “jet-black hair” and smiles at the reflection of the “blond” self she was trying out (143), showing how the usually confident Mia’s sense of identity is challenged by racist stereotypes.
The novel’s depiction of racism spreads beyond that aimed at Asian Americans or perpetrated by white people. Mia’s Mexican American friend Lupe notes that rich people are “mean” and dismissive of people like her and Mia not only because they are poorer, as Mia hypothesizes, but also because “we’re brown” (81). Racism against black people is highlighted when a car is stolen and the Taiwanese owner of the motel, Mr. Yao, profiles a Black customer, circling her name on a list of customers who had left in the night and writing “black” next to it. “Any idiot knows—black people are dangerous,” he insists. Similarly, though less egregiously, the white police officers question Hank, a full-time “weekly” resident at the motel. Although they do not arrest him, lacking evidence, their questioning at his workplace results in his losing his job, a situation a police officer dismisses as “unfortunate,” while suggesting that some fault of Hank’s must have been the real reason he lost the job (111). As Hank explains to Mia, Black people are used to racist treatment (100) and he is assumed to be “a criminal” and “guilty” on sight (187). A Chinese American security guard collects and circulates among local businesses a list of “bad” customers in which “bad” is equivalent to Black (107).
Clearly, the novel assigns value to characters based on their actions rather than their race. People of various races act in ways that are good, bad, or a more complicated mixture. Asian people can be shown in negative ways, as is seen with Mr. Yao, whom Hank describes as having “coal for a heart” (16) and who cheats the Tang family by changing the compensation agreements repeatedly, taking advantage of their limited options. They can be basically good but act foolish out of desperation, as one immigrant who got entangled with loan sharks. Or they can be basically kind and ethical, like Mia’s family, while still having failings. Similarly, white characters range from those who exhibited racism, to a medical supervisor who “looked like he had as much empathy as a LEGO” (177) when noting that the Tangs were not even citizens while pushing back on providing standard relief for those below the poverty line on an emergency room bill, but does eventually help them, to the ER doctor who “seemed really concerned” and fought to help them (176). Mia writes a letter of thanks to this doctor for demonstrating that “it’s not just every man for himself in America” and for providing hope that “people in America are kind” (181-182). Most of the white characters, whether guests at the hotel or Mia’s teacher at school, fall somewhere in between. Instead of trying to make characters feel bad because of their race, Yang’s hope, as expressed in her author’s note, is that “more people will understand the importance of tolerance and diversity.” She noted her own family’s “infuriating” experience of being told not to rent to African Americans because they were “dangerous,” while also expressing her gratitude for “the many, many wonderful people from all different backgrounds” who welcomed and helped her family.
Perhaps most importantly, given the criticism levied at the novel, while showing racism as a part of life in this nation, the novel refutes that it is the American way. As immigrants, the Tang family chose to come to this country, and even with their struggles, they continue to see the promise of freedom and civil rights. When Mr. Yao warns the Tangs against renting rooms to black people, Mr. Tang respectfully pushes back: “Sir, we can’t judge someone based on their skin color. It isn’t right. This is America” (96). While Mr. Yao derides Mr. Tang’s understanding of “how this country really works” (96), Mia’s family continues to look and work for the ideal. Mia (perhaps unrealistically) helps Hank find a new job, convinces the local businesspeople to refute the security guard’s discriminatory list of “bad” customers, and helps the police solve the case of the stolen car. After the white police officer who had suspected Hank of the theft apologizes to him, though begrudgingly, Mia’s parents tell her that they came to America because “here people are innocent until proven guilty. For the most part, at least” (211). The officer’s apology, however grudging, convinced Mr. Tang that they had made the right choice: “America may not be perfect, but she’s free” (211). While the novel does show color to matter, reflected the lived experience of most people of color, who feel the impact of race in their lives and in how others interact with them, its approach seems neither “divisive” nor “controversial,” but rather balanced and even optimistic.
In Educating for a Diverse Democracy, John Rogers and Joseph Kahne (et al) warn that “conservative political groups focusing on what they term ‘Critical Race Theory,’ as well as issues of sexuality and gender identity” are targeting public schools (viii). In a survey of principals, half reported that parents or other community members have challenged or tried to restrict teaching about “issues of race and racism” and a third have sought to limit students’ access to school library books (ix). While Rogers and Kahne’s survey and interviews showed that “few schools were teaching CRT,” their research provided “clear signs” that the “conflict campaigns” of groups that actively resisted the alleged CRT instruction “led to a chilling effect—in the form of pressure to avoid discussing race and racism in general” and in restricted books and other media that explored racial issues or even showed historically accurate instances of race-based discrimination (19).
Front Desk, while fictional, reflects the experiences and observations of its author, Kelly Yang. To suppress the book because it shows racism to be part of what she has seen and lived suggests either that she is lying or mistaken about her own experiences or that truth doesn’t matter when it contradicts the more comfortable narrative of a color-blind America. I, too, would prefer a nation in which people are not teased, bullied, or suspected of criminal activity on the basis of their race, but banning stories that share such events is not going to make the ideal a reality. Instead, it just gaslights those who experience racism, adding insult to injury. This, to me, is FAR more divisive than Front Desk‘s story of resilience and hope.
Image: Cover illustration from Front Desk (Source).
