Category Latinx scholarship

Sep 3 2020

Book Review: Todos Iguales: Un Corrido de Lemon Grove/ All Equal: A Ballad of Lemon Grove by Christy Hale

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Reviewed by Sanjuana Rodriguez

DESCRIPTION OF THE BOOK: Roberto Àlvarez loved school. Along with other Mexican American children, he attended the Lemon Grove School, where all students—Mexican American and Anglo—studied together as  equals.

In the summer of 1930, the Mexican families learned of a plan to segregate their children in a small, inferior school. Refusing to let this happen, the parents organized. They filed a lawsuit against the school board, with twelve-year-old Roberto as the plaintiff. On March 12, 1931, the judge announced his ruling, supporting the children’s right to equal education. The Mexican American students were immediately reinstated in the Lemon Grove School to learn as equals once again.

With captivating illustrations inspired by vintage citrus crate labels, Christy Hale brings to life the little-known story of the first successful school desegregation case in the United States. It stands as an empowering case in the United States. It stands as an empowering testament to an immigrant community and its tenacity in the fight for educational equity.

MY TWO CENTS: I first learned about this case when I was a PhD student at Georgia State University in a sociology of education course. I remember feeling cheated when I realized that I had not learned about this important piece of American history. This book details the story of the first school desegregation case in the U.S. and does so in a way that children can understand the injustice that the families faced and the courage that it took to challenge school segregation.

The book begins by telling the reader about Roberto Álvarez, a Mexican American 12 year old who attends school in Lemon Grove. Roberto and all the other Mexican children attended the same school as the White children. During the summer of 1930, the families learned that a new school was being built for the Mexican students. When the students returned to school in January of 1931, the principal did not allow the students to enter the school and told them “move aside and let the Anglo students go to class… You do not belong here” (n.p.).

The parents organized. They met with the Mexican consul who believed that “the new school was just a pretext to segregate all the Mexican American children and give them an inferior education” (n.p). The parents filed a lawsuit against the school board and began to raise money for the legal expenses. Roberto Álvarez was named as the plaintiff in the case of Roberto Álvarez v. the Boards of Trustees of Lemon Grove School District. Roberto testified in court and the judge ruled that the school district could not separate all the Mexican American students. All of the students returned to their school the following Monday.

The illustrations in this book are colorful, bold, and bright. One of the features that I noticed in the illustrations was the beautiful way in which the author/illustrator included details such as women’s trenzas, mandiles (aprons), and features of the community in which the children lived. Hale was also able to capture the different emotions that the children experienced. She captured the joy of playing outside and also how scared the children felt as they were being taken to a new school. An author’s note also explains how the illustrations are based on vintage California citrus labels.

One of the obvious characteristics of this book is how it privileges the Spanish translation of the texts. Very few books place the Spanish translation first on the page. The back matter provides extensive detail about the case including what occurred before, during the case, and after. It includes the names of all the children who were included in the court case and gives detailed information about Roberto Ricardo Álvarez, the main character in the story.

This books begins by honoring the “corrido” on which this book is based on: “Un Corrido de Lemon Grove.” A “corrido” is a traditional Mexican story song. This particular corrido details the story of the community in Lemon Grove (details about corridos are included in the back matter). The two pages that feature the corrido grant permission for photocopying. This book could be used a mentor text for students who want to write their own corrido. This is a book that should also be a part of any text set that includes civil rights topics. The case set the stage for Brown v Board and it should be a topic that is introduced to students.

TEACHER RESOURCES: A video titled The Lemon Grove Incident tells about the court case. This was produced by PBS.

Zinn Education Project: Lemon Grove Incident- This page includes a description of the incident as well as a list of teaching resources.

Lee and Low provides a teacher guide for this book.

Lee and Low Blog Post- “How One Teacher Used Todos Iguales to Inspire Social Justice”

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR-ILLUSTRATOR (from her website): When I was little, I knew I shouldn’t make marks in books, so instead, I drew on tiny pieces of paper and tucked my “illustrations” alongside the words. At age ten, I decided to become a writer and illustrator. Back then, my best friend and I acted out the books we loved. Our favorite was Harriet the Spy. Dressed in disguises, we roamed the neighborhood investigating and jotting down our observations in our secret notebooks, just like Harriet. Back at spy headquarters we shared our discoveries with each other. Soon we began writing and illustrating our own stories every day after school.

I have created books as long as I can remember. I studied calligraphy, bookbinding, letterpress and all other means of printing, typography, design, and illustration.

After earning a B.A. in Fine Arts and a Masters in Teaching at Lewis & Clark College in Portland, Oregon, I worked as an art educator for several years. Then I decided to pursue my childhood dream by relocating to Brooklyn, New York to study design and illustration at Pratt Institute.

I taught at the New York Center for Book Arts and as an adjunct professor in the Communication Design department at Pratt Institute while working in children’s book publishing as a designer and art director. During this period, I also began illustrating and have since worked on over 30 books—writing some of those too.

After many years in New York, I moved to Northern California where I continue to work as a writer, illustrator, designer, art director, and as an educator—offering programs at museums, schools, and libraries. I teach an online course in Writing for Picture Books through the illustration department at the Academy of Art University in San Francisco.

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ABOUT THE REVIEWER: Sanjuana C. Rodriguez is an Assistant Professor of Literacy and Reading Education in the Elementary and Early Childhood Department at Kennesaw State University. Her research interests include the early literacy development of culturally and linguistically diverse students, early writing development, literacy development of students who are emergent bilinguals, and Latinx children’s literature. She has published in journals such as Journal of Language and Literacy Education, Language Arts, and Language Arts Journal of Michigan.

May 21 2020

Review of Nerds, Goths, Geeks, and Freaks: Outsiders in Chicanx and Latinx Young Adult Literature

Reviewed by Cris Rhodes

Publisher’s Description of the Book: 

Contributions by Carolina Alonso, Elena Avilés, Trevor Boffone, Christi Cook, Ella Diaz, Amanda Ellis, Cristina Herrera, Guadalupe García McCall, Domino Pérez, Adrianna M. Santos, Roxanne Schroeder-Arce, Lettycia Terrones, and Tim Wadham

In Nerds, Goths, Geeks, and Freaks: Outsiders in Chicanx and Latinx Young Adult Literature, the outsider intersects with discussions of race, ethnicity, gender, and sexuality. The essays in this volume address questions of outsider identities and how these identities are shaped by mainstream myths around Chicanx and Latinx young people, particularly with the common stereotype of the struggling, underachieving inner-city teens. 

Contributors also grapple with how young adults reclaim what it means to be an outsider, weirdo, nerd, or goth, and how the reclamation of these marginalized identities expand conversations around authenticity and narrow understandings of what constitutes cultural identity. 

Included are analysis of such texts as I Am Not Your Perfect Mexican Daughter, Shadowshaper, Swimming While Drowning, and others. Addressed in the essays are themes of outsiders in Chicanx/Latinx children’s and young adult literature, and the contributors insist that to understand Latinx youth identities it is necessary to shed light on outsiders within an already marginalized ethnic group: nerds, goths, geeks, freaks, and others who might not fit within such Latinx popular cultural paradigms as the chola and cholo, identities that are ever-present in films, television, and the internet.

MY TWO CENTS: In a departure from my usually reviewed materials for this website, I was delighted to jump into an academic text. I’ve reviewed fiction for Latinxs in Kid Lit, but this is a work of scholarship and thus, a very different read. Usually, when I review, I try to temper my scholarly focuses and think about what a readership of young people would enjoy. Here, however, the intended audience of the text is scholars like me! Thus, the publication of this edited collection was exciting, dating back to the moment when I spotted the original call for chapters and hoped that it would be just the right addition to our field. It is.

As scholars of Latinx children’s literature know, there is a paucity of edited volumes on the subject. In fact, only a few have been published, and all within the last several years. Importantly, Nerds, Goths, Geeks, and Freaks furthers existing scholarly conversations about Latinx children’s literature by looking at “outsiders within an already marginalized community” (from the Introduction by editors Trevor Boffone and Cristina Herrera). For those outside of Latinx children’s literature scholarship: This area of study tends to focus on stereotypical portraits of young Latinxs–that is, the chola/a/x, inner-city kids, at-risk youth, etc. But, in focalizing other Latinx youth populations, this volume encourages engagement with very real, seldom interrogated Latinx adolescents. 

The book itself is neatly divided into different categories, allowing readers to hone in on chapters of particular interest to them. Though the title indicates that the book centers nerds, goths, geeks, and freaks–it actually does more than that, analyzing Latinx adolescents who are bookworms, or superheroes, or queer, or artists, in addition to those who fit within the identities listed in the book’s title. Such analyses of Latinxs who don’t settle in the stereotypical image of Latinx youth are much needed in the field of literary study and are also essential conversations for those of us who read and enjoy Latinx children’s books. Using the frameworks provided by Boffone and Herrera and their authors encourages us to spotlight Latinx youth literature that defies the single story often perpetuated about Latinxs. 

Cris Rhodes, the reviewer, in her teen years

For someone who identified, at some time or another throughout my own teen years, as a Latina nerd, goth, geek, and freak, seeing explorations of these identities in literature is affirming. I would’ve loved to have had a book like Gabi, A Girl in Pieces when I first decided I wanted to be a writer or The First Rule of Punk when I dyed half of my hair purple (not nearly as cool as the quetzal green Malú uses in the book). As a current scholar of children’s literature, I consider conversations about these textual moments as doing much good to our field. They highlight that studying Latinxs isn’t a niche occupation, but is integral to studying children’s literature as a whole. And, as a consumer of Latinx youth literature, I’m glad to see these books given their critical due. 

The chapters in this collection are academically rigorous and critical, yet accessible. This is one of the few scholarly texts that I would recommend for general readers (not just scholars), and particularly for older, adolescent readers headed into college. The writing modeled throughout is the kind of cogent, scholarly writing their professors and teachers will be looking for. Additionally, it should be largely understandable for those without a critical scholarly background, as each author does a good job of providing a foundation for the analyses they make. And, for anyone not fully comfortable reading scholarship, I encourage them to at least peruse the Table of Contents for ideas on quality fiction to read!

All in all, Nerds, Goths, Geeks, and Freaks: Outsiders in Chicanx and Latinx Young Adult Literature is a solid academic text, a great invitation for new, Latinx youth literature scholars, and an intriguing library of excellent Latinx children’s books. 

TEACHING TIPS: Listen, I think all professors in the humanities (heck, also in STEM) should be teaching something about Latinx youth. If they’re not, then they’re doing a disservice both to their students and to the growing population of Latinx youth throughout the world. That being said, this volume would serve well in college-level education courses, especially for students at predominantly white institutions who have little previous exposure to studying Latinx youth or Latinx children’s literature. Additionally, I would teach the chapters in this volume in general literature courses or more specialized children’s or Latinx literature courses. (In fact, I’m a little miffed this volume wasn’t released before I taught my “Latinx Youth and Their Literatures” course!). Finally, as I explained in my review, the tone of each of the chapters is exemplary of good scholarly writing, thus I would also encourage teachers/professors to show this to students as a model of scholarly research and writing. 

The following chapter titles offer an additional glimpse of themes explored in Nerds, Goths, Geeks, and Freaks: Outsiders in Chicanx and Latinx Young Adult Literature:

Chapter 5: “Afuerxs and Cultural Practice in Shadowshaper and Labyrinth Lost“, by contributor Domino Pérez

Chapter 8: ” ‘These Latin Girls Mean Business’: Expanding the Boundaries of Latina Youth Identity in Meg Medina’s YA Novel, Yaqui Delgado Wants to Kick Your Ass,” by editor-contributor Cristina Herrera

Chapter 12: “The Coming-of-Age Experience in Chicanx Queer Novels What Night Brings and Aristotle & Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe,” by contributor Carolina Alonso

 

ABOUT THE REVIEWER: Cris Rhodes holds a Ph. D. from Texas A&M-Commerce. She is an assistant professor of English at Shippensburg University of Pennsylvania, where she teaches writing, culturally diverse literature, and ethnic literatures. In addition to teaching, Cris’s scholarship focuses on Latinx youth and their literature or related media. She also has a particular scholarly interest in activism and the ways that young Latinxs advocate for themselves and their communities.