Do Tell

This week, I went on a journey with three women, two black, one white, from Jackson, Mississippi. Aibileen, Minny, and Skeeter are the main characters in The Help by Kathryn stockett. I hate to be a bandwagon reader (The Help is a New York Times #1 Bestseller), but sometimes, like this time, it's well worth it. I've been hearing about the book and its movie (due out August 12) for a while now, but when my mom suggested I read it, I figured I'd jump right in. At 522 pages, it's quite lengthy, and I'm usually not the type who can read an entire book in one sitting. I've been going to bed for the last few nights lamenting the fact that we humans have to sleep to feel good and have to work to make the dough.

The novel's backdrop is 1960's deep South. With allusions to Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and President John F. Kennedy, it's hard not to believe that the story is a fairly accurate depiction of the relationships between white and black people, but more specifically, white homeowners and black maids (or help or domestics) when "Separate but Equal" still meant that it was okay to ship almost spoiled milk from white grocery stores to sell it in black grocery stores.

Aibileen and Minny are two very smart, very bitter, black maids for two very ignorant, very naive women. Having worked since they were teenagers, and having almost no other choice, they've half-raised at least 10 kids a piece. Over the years, Aibileen and Minny have learned the golden rule of working as a maid: White people are not your friends. These women avoid talking to or even looking at their employers. Skeeter (Miss Skeeter to Aibileen and Minny) is the young daughter of wealthy parents who own and run a cotton farm. The family employs a maid with whom Skeeter grows close to and respects very much. Her friends are Hilly and Elizabeth, two women who have been taught the golden rule of employing a maid: Black people are not your friends. These women have made a career out of barking orders at their help, playing bridge on Wednesday afternoons, and making babies who will be raised by others. Skeeter knows that her friends, and most of the country's population, are wrong about black people. They aren't dirty, and they don't have diseases that you can catch by sharing a bathroom with them. However, she finds it hard to escape the expectations of a young, wealthy, southern woman: find a boyfriend, get engaged, get married, hire a maid, have children. She wants to break the mold, though. She wants to become a writer. She also deeply believes in Civil Rights. Fate, and a little finesse, brings Aibileen, Minny, and Skeeter together to document the stories of black people working for white families in Mississippi.

The Help is heart-warming and heart-breaking. It's uplifting and upsetting. At times it's hillarious. Most of all, it's eye-opening. Not having lived through the 1960's, I've never known what it's like to be emersed in a culture so deeply racist that black and white people can't share the same drinking fountains. I didn't participate in The March on Washington, and I've never witnessed a race riot. Having read The Help, though, has helped me to understand a little bit better what life was like during such transitional times. As Charles Dickens so aptly put it, it was the best of times, it was the worst of times. Many people escaped at the other end of such a challenging era enlightened.

Having finished such a poignant novel just days after President Obama certified the repeal of "Don't Ask, Don't Tell," I realized how easy it is to compare the original DADT legislation to "Seperate but Equal." The original DADT policy "prohibits military personnel from discriminating against or harassing closeted homosexual or bisexual service members or applicants, while barring openly gay, lesbian, or bisexual persons from military service." Isn't asking these people to "not tell" discriminating against and harassing them? Likewise, the original SBE doctrine certified that "services, facilities and public accommodations were allowed to be separated by race, on the condition that the quality of each group's public facilities was to remain equal." We've all heard the old saying: "Separate is inherently not equal." It's really easy to get sucked into old cliches: "History repeats itself," and "The more things change, the more they stay the same;" but I suppose it's appropriate to remain optomists, reassuring ourselves that our country, our world, is forever changing and learning from its mistakes.

Its unfortunate that we haven't already made all of these essential changes; but learning is growth, and growth can only mean good things for everyone.

I love a good coming of age story.

I have a good number of Latino students, so this school year, I charged myself with the task of collecting enough books featuring Latino protagonists to go around. My goal was to give those students a story they could relate to in hopes that the reading flood gates would open for them. You see, many of my students (Latino or otherwise) have a reading level that dips far below their grade level. What's worse, many of them don't own any books or subscribe to any magazines! Together, the combination is lethal. Most of them claim that "reading is boring" or "there are no good books," but the real problem is that they feel like they can't read and they're embarrassed. If they're 13 and aware that they're reading at a fourth grade level, they are much more likely to proclaim, "Reading sucks!" than to pick up a book actually designed for fourth graders. These books look and feel childish, and that's the last thing a 13-year-old wants to be.

As a teacher, the benefits of having an extensive classroom library are two fold. As a favor to myself, I collect books so I can point students who are whining about a book in a new direction, so I am not constantlly sending students to the library (many times just so they can get out of class), and so I can offer struggling readers books that look and feel age-appropriate, but are easy enough and fun enough to read that they feel successful. While this task is expensive (I shop on the bargain shelves at Borders and Barnes & Noble, at community book sales, and at garage sales, but boy does it add up), laborous and time consuming, it's well worth it. More importantly, students see my large library as a clue that reading is important, an essential component to a student's growth. Okay, so those aren't the words they choose (more often it's, "Why do we have to read so much?"), but when I look around my classroom during independent reading time and see 30 students genuinely reading, it warms my heart.

Let's get back on track. While I certainly didn't collect "enough" books featuring Latino protagonists, I collected a fair amount. As best laid plans often do, my plan to read all of the books I collected went awry. Given the nature of Young Adult Literature, it's often hard to stomach some of the "youngest" of plots. I did, nevertheless, read a few. One of the best was Esperanza Rising by Pam Munoz Ryan.

Living in Mexico during the 1930's, Esperanza's family is wealthy and well-to-do. Esperanza wants for nothing and has servants who cook her meals, clean her room, and do her hair. She isn't a spoiled brat, but she knows no different, so she takes advantage of the luxuries that her life provides for her. The night before her birthday, her father, a land owner and well-known businessman, is killed. This, of course, shakes Esperanza, Mama (her mother), and Abuelita (her grandmother). Shortly after, Mama is approached by Tio Luis, who asks her to marry him. A faithful wife, Mama declines. Tio Luis isn't happy and makes the family's life so difficult that they decide to migrate to the United States. This journey is a hard one. They must sneak across the border and must do so in the worst of conditions. Esperanza finds that life in California is nothing like the life she lead in Mexico. In order to survive, Esperanza learns that she must work. At first, she spends nights crying herself to sleep because she misses Papa and her old life. Proving that the will to survive is one of human-kind's greatest strengths, Esperanza comes out of the tunnel a winner.

Esperanza Rising is a coming-of-age tale that I'll never forget. While Young-Adult in nature, the issues surrounding the story are meaningful and indicitive of many generations of immigrants who decide America is a place they can call home.

I have a student who started out the year reading at a fourth grade level. She read Esperanza Rising and she was hooked. Her reading level has since Risen. I hope she continues to read over the summer and for the rest of her life.