This is part one in a series on “anti-CRT” book bans.
As noted before, I care deeply about the availability of books that serve as mirrors and windows for readers. My concern about the effects of book banning, restricting, and other forms of censorship has led me to examine some baffling instances of books targeted in the name of protecting children. A number of stories have provided “big picture” overviews of these book ban efforts and some of the related movements to control public education and libraries, so I’m taking a different approach with what will be a series of posts providing deep dives into specific books that seem to have a lot to offer young readers, and seem mostly positive and optimistic, lacking offensive language or content that includes sex or violence, but that have been targeted repeatedly in the last couple of years. What these books have in common is that they are objected to on the grounds of legislation [see section 51.6; many other states have similar bills] that prohibits school instruction that makes students feel “discomfort, guilt, anguish, or another form of psychological distress” based on the individual’s race or sex. I’m curious about what aspects of these critically and popularly acclaimed books seem so threatening to their opponents and why and to whom they might cause pain (discomfort, guilt, anguish), as well as concerned about the painful emotions these attacks may cause those whose voices and stories are represented in the targeted books.
First up is Duncan Tonatiuh’s 2014 Separate Is Never Equal: Sylvia Mendez and Her Family’s Fight for Desegregation. This picture book, based on a historical incident and informed by extensive interviews with Sylvia Mendez and thorough research of legal documents, recounts a family’s successful fight against segregation after the children—American citizens born in this country—were turned away from the neighborhood school in their new Californian town and forced to attend the inferiorly equipped “Mexican” school. Although it garnered starred reviews from Kirkus and School Library Journal, honor status for the Pura Belpré Illustrator, Robert F. Sibert, and Orbis Pictus awards, and the Jane Addams Children’s Book Award and the Tomás Rivera Mexican-American Childrens’ Book Award, this story also has been a target for censorship, most notably, but far from exclusively, in Williamson County, Tennessee.
A letter from local Moms for Liberty president Robin Steenman, who spearheaded an attack on the Wit and Wisdom curriculum that includes Separate Is Never Equal, and the report produced by the Williamson County Schools committee that examined the targeted books detail the reasons given for the efforts to keep this book out of the classroom. The complaints fall into three clusters: The book is “anti-Mexican”; it is “anti-White,” and it is “anti-American” in divisively focusing on past problems rather than on the nation’s progress.
The accusation that the book presents Mexican Americans as inferior to white children, thus causing emotional distress to those of Mexican descent and teaching racist views to other children must be taken seriously. If substantiated by careful reading of the text and illustrations, such a claim would warrant concerns about the appropriateness of the book as a central instructional text. It also stands out among other book-ban complaints based on “anti-CRT legislation” in focusing on the distress a book would cause children outside the dominant culture, and thus it warrants a post all its own. Let’s take a closer look.
Complaints in the “anti-Mexican” category include concerns that illustrations of the discrimination faced by the Latinx children depict these children as inferior. One spread shows children at “the Mexican school” sitting outside to eat their lunch, with a cow pasture surrounded by an electric fence in the background. Complainants argue that the scene portrays the children “like animals behind bars, as inferior as dogs or cows” [see p. 47]. Another picture of concerns shows the Mendez children holding on to the bars of a fence around a public pool, looking in toward the pool, near which was a sign proclaiming, “No Dogs or Mexicans Allowed.” Yet it is the inferior school facilities and the discriminatory division between the darker-skinned Mendez children and the lighter-complected children playing in the “public” pool—NOT the inferiority of the children themselves—that these illustrations reveal.
The objection that the book “starts and perpetuates stereotypes about Mexicans” [see p. 47] hinges most, however, on the arguments in favor of segregation given at the climactic trial scene. Steenman points out that “Pages 26-27 state [Mexican children are] inferior in their economic outlook, in their clothing, and in their ability to take part in the activities of the school…” (see p. 5), without noting that the offensive statements are made by one whose views are decidedly not supported by the book. She quotes dialogue from the trial scene in which the superintendent of the school district is asked “Do you believe that white students are superior to the Mexicans in the respects that you have mentioned?” and answers “Yes.” Both Steenman and the complainants quoted in the committee report further state that these racist statements are not “denounced as false” in later pages.
The passages in the trial scene pages (which the Williams County committee ruled “should not be read in the classroom”) do, indeed, broadcast offensive views. These censored pages, containing the testimony of Mr. Kent, the Garden Grove school district superintendent, certainly reveal his racist assumptions. However, despite the complainants’ assertions that these views are not denounced, these negative stereotypes are refuted repeatedly—clearly, even when indirectly. Kent’s testimony on page 25, that he sent children to the Mexican school to “help them improve their English” and that he orally tested the children before doing so, is countered by Sylvia’s unspoken thoughts: “That is a lie!” And “That is another lie!” After Mr. Kent’s testimony about needing to send children to the Mexican school because they needed “to learn cleanliness of mind, manner, and dress” that their home life failed to teach them, to improve “their social behavior,” and to prevent spread of diseases, the text clearly indicates the “disbelief” of the Mendez family and others in the room and states, “What he was saying was not true! It was degrading.” The illustrations, also, show refutation of Mr. Kent’s testimony through crossed arms, raised palms, wide eyes, and open mouths. While the narrator never addresses readers directly to state that the superintendent’s accusations were false, competent reading would note the text’s thorough denouncement of the superintendent’s claims. Arguments to the contrary hinge either on an implicit assumption that the refutations made by the thoughts and body language of the Mexican Americans depicted are insubstantial and lack the authority of an author’s or narrator’s explicit denouncement or that readers lack the skills to understand anything that isn’t stated directly. Admittedly, many readers (second grade and older) do lack essential reading skills, but here is an ideal opportunity for teaching inference as well as for showing the importance of separating what some characters say from what a literary work shows overall, both valuable reading skills.
Close reading of text and illustrations thus makes apparent that instead of “start[ing] and perpetuat[ing] stereotypes,” Separate Is Never Equal refutes the already extant offensive views, thus exposing and challenging historical stereotypes. Careful reading, employing the critical thinking and reading skills students need to learn, reveals that the book, rather than being “anti-Mexican,” supports the dignity of the Latinx people depicted.
Readers’ responses to the book should also allay complainants’ concerns that the negative statements about Mexican children quoted in the book cause pain to children who share that ethnicity and implant negative stereotypes in other children. While Steenman argues that there is “no safe way” to teach Separate Is Never Equal, that children would internalize and take away the offensive statements made, author/illustrator Duncan Tonatiuh reports a very different response from the actual elementary students to whom he has read the book—one of “That’s not how people should treat people.” Granted, the book’s creator, who hopes his “books help Latino children realize that their stories and their voices are important,” would be predisposed to perceive such a civil response. However, he is not the only one to note a positive rather than shamed or racist reader response. The Williamson County Schools committee that reviewed the elementary ELA curriculum noted the “great enthusiasm from her students” reported by a classroom teacher who observed a “remarkably elevated level of engagement from her Spanish speaking students during the reading of the text” [see p. 48]. It would be surprising, too, for an anti-Mexican book to be honored by the Pura Belpré and Tomás Rivera Mexican-American Children’s Book Award committees.
Those in favor of banning Separate Is Never Equal focus on the negative impact of depicting racism and the inferior position it tries to impose (as if those who experience racial discrimination would find such a thing news). An alternative approach, however, would be note the many positive portrayals the book provides of its Latino characters: the perseverance and courage of Sylvia’s father in fighting for what was best for his children, the strength and commitment of her mother in taking care of their farm to allow him to pursue that endeavor, and her wisdom in encouraging Sylvia to focus on what was most important and return to the Westminster school after a negative encounter on the first day. Sylvia herself is someone child readers can relate to as she deals with a difficult situation in a positive way and “makes many friends of different backgrounds.”
Thus, the only legitimate concern on the “anti-Mexican” front is the possibility of the book being misread. Faulty reading is all too common. However, the obviously rhetorical question remains: Is the best solution to ban the book—and, in doing so, reduce the opportunity for Spanish-speaking students to experience the engagement that reading this historical story that serves as a “window-book” brought them—or to model and teach the reading skills needed to recognize the book’s celebration of a Mexican American family’s success in achieving a basic American right?
Image: Illustration from Separate is Never Equal (Source).
