“Ain’t they black!”
Negotiating Blackness and Borders
in Canadian Young Adult Literature
Last fall I reached my tipping point. After spending just one year as a fledgling member of the kidlit blogosphere, I poured my accumulated rage and frustration into an open letter to the children’s publishing industry. How could it be that with two black girls now living in the White House, African and African American authors are credited with less than 2% of the five thousand books published for children in the US each year?[i] As a black woman, marginalization is not a new experience for me, and so I found myself invoking—once again—this unfortunate aspect of my Canadian childhood:
I grew up in Canada in a semi-rural community on the outskirts of Toronto; I grew up without any stories that featured children of color, save the extraordinary books of Ezra Jack Keats. In a country that regularly boasts of its commitment to multiculturalism, I grew up not dreaming in color, and the first picture book story I ever wrote featured a white protagonist. I grew up never knowing black people could write books; I never met a black author or illustrator, and I suspect that most children in Canada are living that same sad reality today (thirty years later).
I have lived in the United States for the past fifteen years and when I confront racism here, I invariably think of Canada’s multicultural rhetoric and the broken promises that helped to drive me across the border. As Louise Saldanha asserts, “despite multicultural exertions to the contrary,” people of color often experience Canada as “a place of non-belonging, a place not-home.”[ii] When they learn that I am Canadian, some Americans question my decision to emigrate, especially as the health care debate rages on. It isn’t always easy to explain why I chose to leave the wealthy, socially progressive land of my birth. It can be hard to make others understand how the golden tale (or Olympic spectacle) of multiculturalism actually “disguises Canadian realities through declamations pronouncing us as all equally ethnic, declamations that make cultural and racial inequities appear not part of Canada.”[iii]
Despite the persistent delusion (held by a tiny minority) that the US is now “post-racial,” I think most Americans understand that racism is an ongoing, unresolved dilemma. My online plea for greater diversity in children’s literature garnered some sympathetic responses, but it did not magically transform the policies and practices that exclude most black people from the publishing arena. Here in the US, it’s a topic some folks would rather not discuss, including those authors of color who are still struggling to gain a foothold in the industry. The few established authors have no real incentive to rock the boat, and so I often feel like I’m on my own, doomed to repeat this Sisyphean cycle of incredulity, indignation, and resignation.
Marginalized people know that staying angry all the time is not an effective way to right a wrong. I suspect I’ve already earned a reputation as “an angry black woman,” which only justifies the dismissal of my concerns by the publishing powers that be. Yet I continue to advocate for change because I cannot accept the idea that children today may be growing up in the same appalling state of ignorance that slowed my emergence as a writer. 21st-century kids now know that a black man can become president of the United States—but do they know they can become poets, editors, novelists, illustrators, or playwrights? As a teen, I was bused up to Stratford every other year; I clearly remember studying the plays of Shakespeare and Tennessee Williams at my majority-white high school, but it never once occurred to me that a black person could write or even star in a play. And it wasn’t until 2005, after more than half a century, that the Stratford Shakespearean Festival presented a play (Djanet Sears’ Harlem Duet) that was written, directed, and performed by blacks. By that point I was already in my thirties and had lived in the US for more than ten years; it was in New York, not Toronto, that I discovered (and joined) the long tradition of blacks in the theatre. Do teens in Scarborough today study black playwrights in school? Do they believe that a future in the arts is possible for them in Canada?
Posting that open letter on my blog did yield some results. Two professors wrote me to say that my letter would now be required reading in their classes, and the Editor in Chief of Horn Book asked me to write something for their magazine. In “Decolonizing the Imagination,” I discuss the impact of rarely seeing people of color in the books I read as a child: “Perhaps the one benefit of being so completely excluded from the literary realm was that I had to develop the capacity to dream myself into existence.” I also accept partial responsibility for giving up on a future in Canada:
Many years after leaving Canada, I realized that I never believed anything magical could happen to me there. Whether I attribute that to a failure of my own imagination or to external factors, the result was that my dreams took root in a foreign land.
I left Toronto in 1994, but did return for two six-month periods during which I tried to interest Canadian publishers in my many manuscripts. In 1999 I completed my first novel, writing by day in my sister’s solarium and crashing each night on her couch. I left the TV on in the next room with the volume turned up just enough so that I could hear when David Usher’s video for “St. Lawrence River” came on MuchMusic. I checked CNN at least once a day in order to follow the Amadou Diallo case. I met Larry Hill and went through the list of Canadian agents he generously shared with me; nearly every agent and editor I approached wanted to see my manuscript (I write a killer query letter).[iv]
The first agent kindly pointed out that in one chapter I had written “Alberta” instead of “Roberta Flack.” She thought the manuscript had real promise, however, and assured me she could make my characters sound “more like Brooklyn blacks.” She did offer to represent me but when I questioned the terms of her contract, I never heard from her again. The last Canadian agent I dealt with that year said my characters seemed “racist.” Frustrated but certain I would have better luck with black agents in New York, I went online, found a job teaching teens in the Bronx, and hitched a ride with my father back to the States.
Five years later, most of my writing was still unpublished and I found myself back in Toronto once more. My father had succumbed to cancer and my ten-month teaching gig in east Africa fell apart after just five weeks. I moved back home with my mother and wrote to keep myself sane; within a month I had produced a memoir, and I gave it the title my father once gave me: Stranger in the Family. I didn’t have the same luck with agents this time around; after yet another rejection, I emailed one agent and asked why black women couldn’t get published in Canada. She assured me I was mistaken, named a slew of black female authors I’d never heard of before, and directed me to a certain small press. The managing editor there expressed interest in my memoir and said her external reviewer was “madly in love” with my young adult novel, A Wish After Midnight. But after several months of meeting for lunch and exchanging endless emails, no contracts materialized; I sent Wish to two other small presses in Toronto and was given equally disheartening news. One press was interested in the book but only if I cut out the historical section; since Wish is a time-travel story, that would have meant losing two-thirds of the novel and its sequel (which was already in progress). The other press said they admired my writing, but didn’t have the capacity to market my book in the US. And they would have to, it seems, since the novel is set in Brooklyn. Apparently no one in Canada wants to read about black folks who live in the United States.
Once again, I resolved to pack my bags and return to New York. In 2008, I self-published my memoir, my young adult novel, and two collections of plays. That fall, my first picture book was published by Lee & Low, a small multicultural press; Bird won numerous awards and honors, but no newspaper in Canada would review it and Chapters Indigo refused to sell it. In 2009, Amazon started its own publishing wing and acquired the rights to A Wish After Midnight. The “new” edition (same book, different cover) was released in February 2010; Wish was featured in USA Today, I was interviewed on three radio shows, we got fantastic reviews, and The Huffington Post asked me to blog for them. My first post, “Breaking Down Doors,” outlined my long, difficult journey to publication. My second post, “Demanding Diversity in Publishing,” proposed that the US follow the UK’s lead in adopting a Publishing Equalities Charter. I think Canada should do the same.
I appreciate the mission of publishers to promote, preserve, and protect Canadian culture. American cultural imperialism is a very real threat, yet American books were the only ones in my Canadian library that showed black children on the cover. I adored the picture books of Ezra Jack Keats, and in those books (written and illustrated by a white Jewish Brooklynite) I finally found the mirror I craved as a child.[v] Mildred D. Taylor’s middle grade novel, Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry was my introduction to race relations in the Jim Crow South. After reading this book (and its sequel, Let the Circle Be Unbroken), I penned my first story that did NOT have a white protagonist. Without those books from the US—without television shows from the US, without magazines from the US—I would never have found a mirror for my black female self in Canada. Not in the 1970s and ’80s.
Are Canadian publishers doing a better job today? I think so. I recently queried some of the most respected children’s presses in Toronto and received a very short list of young adult novels that feature black protagonists: two were set in Cuba, one in Rwanda, one in South Africa, and the other in Mali. When I looked for picture books, most were set in the Caribbean. Apparently no editor claimed they couldn’t publish these books due to their inability to market them abroad; all were deemed suitable for the Canadian market. So what was it that made my work so unpalatable? Anti-US sentiment, or a preference for more “exotic” locales?
When she learned I was writing a time-travel novel, my cousin (who is white) shared with me one of her favorite childhood books, Janet Lunn’s The Root Cellar (1981). In this story, a wealthy, orphaned white girl from New York is sent to live with relatives in Ontario and magically finds herself transported back in time. Rose’s real adventure, however, begins when she travels back across the border to the US and passes as a boy after the Civil War. As their train pulls into Syracuse, Rose and her white Canadian companion, Susan, share this bizarre exchange:
Through the window they watched the busy crowds. There were many soldiers and the number of black people amazed Susan. “I ain’t never seen but two before,” she whispered. “They come across the lake with Captain Armitage. They’d run off from being slaves. They was kind of sad. I don’t know where they went after. Ain’t they black!”
“I suppose so. I’ve never thought about it. There are lots of black people in New York, as many as white people, I think. Susan, let’s get something to drink.”[vi]
I know my cousin hoped I would also love The Root Cellar, and I might have—in 1981. But as an adult, the book rubbed me the wrong way. Susan’s ignorance and indifference reminded me of what my African American ancestors likely faced when they bought their freedom and migrated to Ontario in the 1820s; her inability to recall “where they went” mirrors the invisibility of blacks in the narratives I was fed as a child (the novels at my local library and the textbooks assigned in my schools). Why did Lunn choose to make her protagonist American? And why did her Canadian characters have to cross the border to encounter the very same blacks who were already living in their midst? For Susan, African Americans (in numbers greater than two) are a source of curiosity but also anxiety; it is only after she meets John and Sally—who prepare her bath, scrub her clothes, and make her food—that she concludes, “Blacks is nice.” How would I have felt as the only black student in my fifth-grade class as this book was read aloud? Was I, by then, already accustomed to de-racing myself in order to fit in? Would I have identified with the heroic white protagonist, or would I have been shamed by my obvious affiliation with the docile black servants?
In my time-travel novel, A Wish After Midnight, blacks take center stage. Like Janet Lunn, I am indebted to Frances Hodgson Burnett’s The Secret Garden; my protagonist haunts the Brooklyn Botanic garden and there finds the portal that leads to the past. But my main characters, Genna and Judah, are brave, strong, and resilient (they’re also dark-skinned—“ain’t they black!”). Both teens actively engage with the people they encounter in Civil War-era Brooklyn as they desperately try to shape a future where they can be free. The whites in my novel are marginal yet complex, their brief moments of heroism dimmed by their unapologetic bigotry. The black characters are diverse, with distinct voices, opinions, and personal histories. It would be interesting, I think, for students to read The Root Cellar and A Wish After Midnight together. But that isn’t likely to happen since Wish still hasn’t been reviewed in any Canadian newspapers, and once again is not being stocked at Chapters. [vii]
Perhaps my writing fails to be foreign enough. Despite the endless efforts to differentiate Canada from the United States, perhaps the urban worlds I create aren’t sufficiently different from the city spheres occupied by teens in Toronto, Montreal, or Winnipeg. Louise Saldanha argues that notions of “‘home’ and ‘away’ centrally occupy children’s literature in North America,” with “away” marking “the space of forests and similar unsettled, unsettling realms, the zone of strangeness and the zone of insecurity.”[viii] Perhaps my stories are actually too familiar, generating anxiety around “domestic” blackness, racism, and those for whom Canada is their country of origin but still is not fully their “home.”
[i] These statistics are the latest (2008) compiled by the Cooperative Children’s Book Center; two Canadian presses, Groundwood and Tundra, submit their books for inclusion in this ongoing study: http://www.education.wisc.edu/ccbc/books/pcstats.asp.
I was not able to locate an organization in Canada that compiles comparable statistics on the percentage of children’s books by and about people of color. The Canadian Children’s Book Centre asserts that, “based on the books that are submitted to our organization, over 500 English-language books are published for children each year in Canada.” I have put together my own table, which can be found here.
[ii] Louise Saldanha, “White Picket Fences: At Home with Multicultural Children’s Literature in Canada?” in Home words : discourses of children’s literature in Canada, edited by Mavis Reimer (Waterloo, Ont.: Wilfrid Laurier University Press, 2008) 131. I would like to thank Perry Nodelman for directing me to this important essay.
[iii] Saldanha 130.
[iv] “As an avid reader and scholar of black women’s literature, I have become aware of marked gaps in the literary tradition, particularly in the representation of young black women’s lives. Although the audience for black women’s writing has continued to expand in recent years, stories that specifically address the concerns of younger women are difficult to find. Established writers like Toni Morrison and Alice Walker have shown that the particular perspectives of black women warrant literary attention, and the emergence of younger writers such as Zadie Smith, Edwidge Danticat, and asha bandele indicates that the field is, in fact, widening. Yet the voices of young Canadian women of my generation are seldom heard, and are rarely featured in serious literary texts.
I have attempted to remedy this situation by writing a novel that is set within the vibrant, diverse, and often troubled black communities of Brooklyn. One Eye Open is the story of a young black woman, twenty-five year old Nina Traymore, who was raised in the city by her father after her mother unexpectedly left the family and the country for a freer life abroad. One Eye Open examines the intersection of desire and ambivalence; Nina fears and hopes for the future, but also fears and resents the past, leaving her alternately paralyzed and catalyzed by her own yearning. Embittered by her mother’s abandonment, and by the trauma that persists years after she is brutally raped by a male acquaintance, Nina tentatively sheds her cold exterior and opens herself once more to the possibilities of love. As she struggles against the violent forces threatening to destroy her inner city neighborhood, Nina also attempts to negotiate her conflicting sexual desire for Isaiah Edwards, a young black man who re-enters the community with his own turbulent history. With his love, and the support of her best friend, Vinetta, Nina ultimately reconciles herself to her past and determines to build a space of healing within herself, and in her beloved yet beleaguered community.”
[v] Rudine Sims Bishop writes: “Books are sometimes windows, offering views of worlds that may be real or imagined, familiar or strange. These windows are also sliding glass doors, and readers have only to walk through in imagination to become part of whatever world has been created or recreated by the author. When lighting conditions are just right, however, a window can also be a mirror. Literature transforms human experience and reflects it back to us, and in that reflection we can see our own lives and experiences as part of the larger human experience. Reading, then, becomes a means of self-affirmation, and readers often seek their mirrors in books.” Conversely, “When children cannot find themselves reflected in the books they read, or when the images they see are distorted, negative, or laughable, they learn a powerful lesson about how they are devalued in the society of which they are a part.” From “Mirrors, Windows, and Sliding Glass Doors,” in Perspectives: Choosing and Using Books for the Classroom (Vo. 6, no. 3. Summer 1990). You can also find the complete essay here: http://www.rif.org/multi_campaign_windows_mirrors.mspx
[vi] Janet Lunn, The Root Cellar (1981; New York: Puffin Books, 1996) 121.
[vii] Wish is available on Chapters’ website, but must be ordered in-store; the same is true of Book City. The Toronto Women’s Bookstore carried my self-published edition of Wish.
[viii] Saldanha 129.
Bibliography
Bishop, Rudine Sims. “Mirrors, Windows, and Sliding Glass Doors.” In Perspectives: Choosing and Using Books for the Classroom. Vo. 6, no. 3. Summer 1990.
Lunn, Janet. The Root Cellar. 1981. New York: Puffin Books, 1996.
Saldanha, Louise. “White Picket Fences: At Home with Multicultural Children’s Literature in Canada?” In Home words : discourses of children’s literature in Canada. Ed. By Mavis Reimer. Waterloo, Ont.: Wilfrid Laurier University Press, 2008.
Great post, Zetta. (fyi, I often print out your posts to read and study later, not only for the thoughts but also for the elegant use of language.) And you make an excellent point about the White House. I wonder if we could get a letter or email campaign going to Michelle and the kids to push POC children’s lit more?
Thanks, Jill! That’s high praise coming from such a great writer…I think with the political climate right now, the Obamas can’t afford to promote anything that might be construed as beneficial to blacks–and that’s just about everything! Maybe in Term 2…
Wonderful essay. Do you think things will get better?
“Perhaps my writing fails to be foreign enough.” This reminds me of stories that black actors and actresses talk about all the time…”I didn’t get the part because I wasn’t black enough”, or, “the passed me over ’cause they said I was too black.” *sigh*
I am not well versed in Canadian history, but it feels like because there was no civil rights movement there, there’s no real pressure for Canadians to acknowledge the black experience. They can just ignore and deny it. Sad.
Thanks, Shadra! I think things *are* better than when I was growing up, but change comes slowly in Canada–I think they *just* opened the first all-black charter school and that was a really big deal. We did have a civil rights movement but the context was different, there’s the colonial/Commonwealth legacy to consider, a much smaller and more ethnically diverse black population…so I don’t expect the kidlit scene in Canada to be “just like” the scene here in the US–but both industries could use great diversity and transparency…
Wow, what an essay. This clearly came out of inspiration and righteous anger (which I can totally understand). And you’re right – Canada does carry this image of benign friendliness and acceptance, which we heard lots about during the Olympics. But it sounds like there is a long way to go, and that there are questions about what “acceptance” means. I hope stores listen and you find some supportive Canadians to go and demand your book in the stores. I remember, This Land is My Land by George Littlechild was one of the only books we had distributed in Canada when I worked at Children’s Book Press. George is a pretty famous First Nations artist, so I’m sure that’s why the book was carried.
And interestingly, a lot of the books sold in the UK that feature black characters are also from the US. Of course, there are some written and illustrated here. But Ezra Jack Keats had the same important influence on this side of the pond. So perhaps there is something to be said for some of the open, difficult and sometimes ugly discussion of race that happens in the US. Things are more out in the open, perhaps, for better and for worse.
Thanks, Laura–I definitely write best when I’m pissed off! I’ll be interested in that Paper Tigers focus on Canadian literature by and about the First Nations…I wonder if children’s books show Native child as they live today, or if it’s more of the historical narratives. I wouldn’t ever want to cut off the supply of US books (since that would include mine!), I just wish black bookstores carried as many books by black authors and about black children living in Canada. I do think the US is more advanced in some ways when it comes to racial discourse, ugly as it gets sometimes…
I second that ‘Wow’ from Laura. This is an amazing essay. I’m behind the idea of getting Michelle to speak out on this issue. Shadra’s comment really resonated for me. I hear that about my writing a lot: it’s not “obviously” black … though no one explains what that means, exactly. When I sang in competition in high school, I was scolded for not singing “black enough.” Feh.
We needed to be having a panel discussion on this at the conference … not ‘just’ a school-age program, but center stage with all the other things being discussed. Maybe next year?
Thanks, girlgriot! So many of us have been told weren’t not black enough–I wonder if it’s different for today’s teens. I also wished the conference had included a panel of kidlit authors and scholars…we still have to fight for recognition, it seems, both at black conferences and white-dominated kidlit conferences.
That was a fantastic essay, thanks for sharing so personally. You comment about how your writing is not being seen as exotic enough and so is causing consternation, which links in with what Blackeyed Susan had to say recently about how there are plenty of historical narratives about black characters easily available (although not always written by black authors), but few contemporary novels that get pushed into the spotlight as much. Based on anecdotal evidence it does seem that creating some kind of distance between readers and the black characters they can read about is favoured.
Thanks, Jodie. It definitely makes me wonder how much influence all-white editorial boards have in shaping the body of literature we like to think of as “black”…it’s important to include stories from across the African diaspora, but not to the exclusion of stories that expose unjust race relations HERE.
Why do you think it necessary wait for or expect the White publishing companies to push Black Plays, Black Poetry, etc.
Go back and Black Novelist and essayist got published in the seventies and eigthties; go back and check out who got Motown going and the music that has tranformed American folk and popular culture; Who (whatever you might think of it) got rap and the spoken word industry moving. We had a passion in our guts back in those heady days. We were not looking for or even wanting the White man’s love and approval. So we re-invented the world and for a brief moment we were the creators and the consumers of things Black, as we defined it. If the Black Theatreworkshop of Montreal was waiting for the approval of Stratford or existed to simply showcase Black actors and palywrights, Black kids in the school system of Montreal would not have had the ecxperience for the last 25 years of seeing Black work and Black artistists in their schools. Black people in Montreal would not have seen the work of Djanet; or Andrew Moody’s “Lady Smith”, or David Edgecomb’s adaptataion of two of Austen Clarke’s work as the play ” Strong Current); or Dwight Bacquie’s “Marvin Dream of a Lifetime”; the “Swan Song of maria” by Carol Anderson;etc
BTW had a purpose to create a Black Theatre and support the creation of a Black Canadian literature. The realizationn from the start that thios was going to be long and hard. 40 years later we are still at it but we are seiing the fruit beginning to decide to born. You cannot keep running away to the USA. The answer may be and usually is within you. I draw your attention to the fact that success began when you self published. That is when you took matters into your own hands and ceased to seek approval from the middleman or woman. Those people are selling to a market that they have organized, with a certain culture, taste, comfort zone, illusions, and dreamscape. They have organized that market to provide for their economic security. Is your pen moving to those drum beats. In any case that way of reaching audiences is not what it used to be. You got to go out an peddle your work. ot even the big guys can predict the likelihood of success ( a best seller). As somebody says, its a crap game.
So don’t wait for the middleman. He or she wont probably sell more than you personally would. Except you get to keep more of the selling price.
Of course some of the problems have to do with the fact that the Black potential market for childrens books is not organized. It would be easier if some body would specialize in the marketing specific to the needs of Black children. Black Theatreworkshop Montreal is in the school system each year. But it is sometimes quite difficult getting material. Thank God for Dennis Poon’s “Skin”, Ricardo Keens Douglas’ “Nutmeg Princess”, and the fact that BTW at times creates its own material (Winston Sutton’s “Coloured Museum” and “Our Lost Heoes”. But notwithstanding the shortage of material, there is the critical indifference of the Black parent. In many ways it is more the fact of White teachers searching for multicultural material that creates the demand(Some 40 schools in Montreal) as oppose to the parents demanding our presence in the schools.
By the way there is a store called a ” Different Book List” in Toronto. It specializes in Black and particularly Children Books”. The owner of the store is a spoken word artist and advocate for readibg and telling stories to kids, for their intellectual and social development, the development of the creative imagination, and experiencing the share joy of reading. Her name is Itah. Her husband take care of day to day sales, and she goes out promoting the writers and their bppks and illustrating the use and value of the the material for teaching values and cross cultural understanding. She sells the works by demonstration how they fit into the foprmal learning environment in Toronto, Vancouver, Edmonton, etc. You can get all the details by Googling “A Different Book List”. You may also find it interesting to check out the poets , essayists and authors writing in Kola. Google Kola or contact Horace Goddard at hgoddard@emsb.qc.ca.
Now, having said all this I am not discounting the importance of other cultures and literature. But I don’t think I need to elaborate on this.
Hi, Clarence. Thanks for the long comment, and for the consistent commitment you’ve made to bringing black artists into Montreal’s schools. I believe in having multiple strategies–I’ve self-published, worked with a small multicultural press, and I’m now working with an innovative nontraditional publisher. I don’t think an either/or model is most effective, though I certainly support black-owned presses, bookstores, and other cultural producers. I do think we have a responsibility, however, to ensure that mainstream cultural institutions are practicing equality–ESPECIALLY those that depend heavily upon government subsidies! If tax dollars are keeping many small presses afloat, then tax payers have a right to demand that their cultures, communities, and children are reflected in the books being produced. It’s discouraging to hear that black parents in Montreal aren’t more supportive of your efforts. I’ve contacted A Different Booklist many times, and always visit when I’m in Toronto. The Toronto Women’s Bookstore has carried my books from the beginning, and I’m grateful for their support. I also blog in order to have creative control over my work–but that doesn’t mean I don’t submit to traditional literary journals. For me it’s both/and, not either/or.
What a great post, Zetta.
Thanks, Shveta!
Hello Zetta,
I admire your spirit, your perseverance and strength. I know what it feels like to pursue a dream and to experience a lot of discouraging and disheartening words along the way. I got very emotional reading your essay. My words of comfort to you, if you have a dream, if you have the talent. GO for it! Fight for it. It is your gift. Don’t let anybody tell you any different.
Thanks, Gen. You gotta have faith, right?
Wow I don’t even know what to say. AMAZING post Zetta! I don’t know anything about Canada excpet hoceky and a bit of healthcare, so I certainely can’t offer my commentary on this topic except to say that your story is heartbreaking and I truly hope that diversity in Canada is prmoted a lot more.
It would be so cool to be able to send a box of books about POC to kids in Canada. Maybe if the kids read the books, liked them and went out and bought more of them from U.S. publishers, Canada would wake up. or something. Even if they are set in the U.S. (Borderline by Allan Stratton is the only book that comes to mind that’s about a POC and not set in America. Along with Grease Town)
Thanks, Ari! You had me laughing out loud with your suggestion of shipping multicultural books to Canada…I think most Canadians would cringe at the thought of AMERICANS trying to teach them how to value diversity! I suspect other races are better represented in children’s literature in Canada. I worked in a black bookstore back in the early ’90s, and 99% of the books we carried came from the US–and we did brisk business with local schools. So there is demand for such books, and I think most people do rely on black-authored books coming in from the US. Clarence did mention two Canadian black-authored books (The Nutmeg Princess is one) but they were published in the ’90s, and are set in the Caribbean…I know there’s one recent picture book about blacks living on Canada’s east coast (a 200-year old community). I want to see more “slice of life” stories featuring black Canadian children, and I’d like to know how many books *about* black children in Canada are actually *by* black authors…there’s a “Canadian Girl” type series of books, but I don’t think any black authors participated. In fact, I’m not sure any writers of color were involved…
http://www.ourcanadiangirl.ca/
I’m sorry to hear people are still holding up the “black enough” measuring tape…it’s ridiculous, but eventually your world gets bigger and you realize the measurers are in the minority b/c almost ALL of us have been dismissed as not black enough at some point in our lives…you just have to be who you are…
Oh and I get told I’m not black enough quite often (by other black teens, although some white or latino students have talked about some black kids I know and said they aren’t black. Which really makes me pause becuase how can someone who is NOT black, judge someone who IS black and their blackness?). Mostly, I think it’s because of my half Latino blood. But it’s also because I talk different, and my parents are a bit stricter and don’t let me do whatever I want (which results in my not going to many of the crazy parties the Black kids at my school throw. Sometimes I want to go, but other times I don’t mind missing them). But then again, I’m accepted because I at least understand the language (I’ve heard two kids ask “why some black people talk black” but others don’t. Seriously?! Using slang is not ‘talking black’) and listen to the music. Also I can dance 🙂 (I hope so anyway)
Didn’t mean to go off in a tangent or anything.
I think Clarence does make some valid points but 1) You weren’t running away to the U.S. and 2) He gives example of Black plays but what about children’s literature? Children are impressionalbe and if we want to shape more tolerant generations, we need to show them multicultural literature. Little kids won’t be reading the plays he mentioned anytime soon.
I struggle with this issue frequently as an elementary school teacher in a predominately black, suburban school. It can be very difficult to find enough literature that shows African American (or Latino, or Asian) characters outside of a historical context. I want, and my students need, books with characters that look like them and have similar lives. Thanks for fighting the good fight…
Heather–I hear this from educators ALL the time, yet publishers aren’t listening…same thing with books for boys–when they’re published at all, they don’t really reflect the range of boys’ experiences…personally, I think more teachers need to become editors–I bet very few editors have any experience working in today’s public schools…
I checked out our candian girl and they have one about a former slave (Rachel), written by a white author (two of her children are black). There is also one about Angelique, a Metis girl, not sure if the author is Metis or not.
LOL yeah I see your point. I agree with other commetns above about how we americans don’t think really think about the descandants of the slaves who fled to Canada (although I sort of do since a Chicago Blackhawks player is black and Canadian; Dustin Byfuglien and I wondered about his heritage and my dad talked to me about it).
I know, in the U.S. and Canada even more so, we need books about POC that don’t just deal with historical events (as much as I love it), we need more everyday, realistic fiction. We also need more books about suburban POC and the wealthy ones. *sigh* So much is needed.
I’ve learned so much from this essay and all your other posts. I actually want to visit Canada now (I never really had an interest before) and visit the black bookstores
I don’t even feel qualified to put my thoughts next to yours.
Great essay.
We’ll have none of that, Ms. Alfred! all voices are needed and welcome here…
Hello there 🙂
I just happened upon your blog tonight and was amazed – especially by this post. I wanted to know if it would be possible to get in touch with you sometime soon?
I’m actually trying to apply for a Fulbright scholarship having to do with something similar to this, but it’s been hard getting in touch with people that are capable of helping me, especially from here in the US in a town as small as where I live now.
I’d love to talk to you about this if possible 🙂 I’m lost as to where exactly to find help with research, but I’ve got some sort of starting point, at least. Please let me know if you’d mind corresponding and whatnot. Regardless, thank you so much for posting this 😀 It’s a great help to me – if you only knew!
Hi, Morpheus. Is your research project on publishing in Canada?
Hello there,
Not so much publishing in Canada as racial boundaries and the status of identity concerning Black Canadian authors – I want to know if they have to go through the same that Black American authors have to – being labeled as an African American writer (as opposed to just an American writer), the process of trying to create pieces that either perpetuate or go against stereotypes, etc.
Publishing has a part to play in it though in the area of my trying to see if Canadian publishers like separating Black authors into their own genres or if they’re considered simply Canadian authors, the writing being categorized by plot instead.
Hmmm…you could try contacting George Elliott Clarke at the University of Toronto–he’s one of the most celebrated black Canadian authors, and a professor of literature. He’s not online, however, so you’d have to call or write a letter. David Chariandy’s also a good choice–he’s at Simon Fraser University, I believe; also a novelist and scholar. Leslie Sanders teaches black lit at York University…I don’t really have contacts within publishing, but Althea Prince was the first black woman editorial director at CSPI/Women’s Press–she was fired, I think, but might have some insights that would help you…
aw, it sounds like I have some emailing and phone calling to do! 😀 thank you so much. I appreciate the help a great deal! I’ll keep you updated on things, if that’s okay 🙂
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