An observation

[velvetpage]

I've just been reading the short stories written by my students. The assignment was for a realistic story, with characters similar to themselves experiencing everyday problems.

Now, my class is quite diverse. Out of 24 students, 14 speak a language other than English at home. Of those, three are white (Eastern European) and the rest are mostly from the Indian sub-continent. Five are Muslim, one is a Coptic Christian, the rest are Hindu or Orthodox Christian.

So it was with some surprise that I noted that all of their stories, without exception, used Anglophone names. There was a full complement of Melissas, Jessicas, Amandas, two different Sams, two Maxes, and a few slightly less-common ones. But not a single name in the bunch that seemed to come from their cultures. Not a single reference to cultural food or religion or clothing that wasn't North American. To read the stories, you'd think my class was white-bread middle class from the Prairies.

I find this rather disturbing. We've read more than one story from their cultures, we regularly discuss how each culture in the room has something special to bring to the table, I make opportunities to discuss the things that each culture has in common with the others and the things that set it apart, and yet when it comes to a story that was supposed to relate to their own lives, I get nothing so much as classic examples of acculturation.

I'm not sure what to do about it, though. A classroom is a place where children are enculturated, and if their culture is not the dominant one, some acculturation is almost unavoidable. That said, I want them to feel that their culture is valuable and valid in my classroom, and that a story that involves their experiences as minority cultures in Canada is not only acceptable, but perhaps preferable in this situation because it's closer to their experience. I wouldn't expect all of them to write that way, but I would have expected a few of them to do so.

I'm going to post this to racism_101 as soon as someone over there approves me for membership, and see what they have to say.

Comments

[merlyn4401.livejournal.com]

Off the top of my head, I would say if I were doing that assignment in England I might use Nigel, and if I were doing it in Japan I might use Mitsue. I think it's less that they are ashamed of their culture as they are writing to the dominant culture, if that makes sense.

[velvetpage.livejournal.com]

I certainly don't think they're consciously ashamed of it, but I don't want them thinking that writing to the dominant culture is necessary at all.

[merlyn4401.livejournal.com]

I'm wondering if they think it's necessary, or if it's what they are used to reading. Or if it's instinctual. I know if I am telling a joke in North Dakota I'm likely to use Fran and Ollie (sterotypical names up there - not exactly real, though) but if I am telling it in Texas I use Jim Bob and Betty Sue.

And those are real examples. I know I tend to adjust stuff like that to my audience.

[velvetpage.livejournal.com]

But a majority of their audience is not represented by names like Melissa and Jessica. It's represented much better by names like Jaspreet and Sandeep.

If it were two Indian kids in a class that was otherwise white, I'd buy that. But it's not, and the discussion was that their audience was each other and me. So if they're unconsciously adjusting names for my sake, I want them to stop, and if they see only the dominant culture as worthy of writing a story in, I want that to stop even more.

[amyura.livejournal.com]

Are they watching a lot of TV at home? If all the characters and people in pop culture have typically white names, that might explain it, though it certainly doesn't make it any more desirable.

[velvetpage.livejournal.com]

That could be it. And the model story I half-wrote to show them things like quotation marks had anglophone names.

[pvenables.livejournal.com]

Yes, this was my thought too. The dominant culture is all around them-- it may be too strong to counteract in the classroom alone.

[merlyn4401.livejournal.com]

Fair enough. You're certainly in a better position to evaluate it than I am. :) If it does get posted to racism101, will you link it?

[velvetpage.livejournal.com]

Yes. I'm just waiting on the go-ahead from the mods.

[melstra.livejournal.com]

Can you tailor a new assignment in the future to something like the "other"? I know you discuss that in your classes. How about asking them to relay an anecdote in which someone from one culture visits another and encounters something different--food, attitudes, transportation, etc. You would likely get them to reveal something of their own background, or perhaps that of a friend.

I know this would be somewhat different, because what you REALLY want to get at are the underlying attitudes, but at least it would give them an opportunity to celebrate their culture and the contrast.

What would happen if you did the short story assignment along with them and then read your story aloud--and instead of using "white" names, you called the characters Kavita and Sandeep? Would they think you were making fun of them? Would they notice?

It's an interesting observation, and thanks for sharing it.

[velvetpage.livejournal.com]

We've been discussing identity in the context of literature circle books, especially one called Feathers, by Jacqueline Woodson, which deals with a white boy in a black school in the 1970s. I am already trying to get them to extend that. I may push it further.

[amazonvera.livejournal.com]

I think it's a testament to the fact that even when a kid is in an environment that sends them clear messages of acceptance (like your classroom), it can be a drop in the bucket to the messages they get everywhere else.

I think some of it is probably down to the fact that these kids are in school, a place that signifies to them the norms of this country. No matter how many diverse faces they see in their classroom, they know that they aren't the Canadian "norm," nor the types of characters they see dominantly represented in Canadian and imported American media. When writing a story for school, they're likely to be in that mindset. I bet if their parents asked them to write a story at home, you'd get very different results.

It might be interesting to later issue another assignment specifying that they write about their family's culture of origin and see what happens. Like, ask all of the students to write a story about someone from their family's culture for an audience outside that culture and then talk about how they wrote differently than they would have for someone within the culture. Or ask them to take a folk story they learned at home from family as a child and creatively modernize it for the 21st century and see what changes they make. Certainly not all of these kids will have grown up hearing stories from their family's culture of origin, or know enough about that culture to create a character from it, but then it can take on a research component.

[velvetpage.livejournal.com]

Hmm. Just today, we were discussing levels of language, and I started with the fact that in my family, we often talk in snippets of melody to which we all know the words. A hummed bar or phrase has deep meaning to us but no meaning whatsoever outside our own family connections to it. (An example: while playing a card game that involved the concept of following suit, we might hum an old Salvation Army chorus to which the words are, "Follow, follow, I will follow Jesus." Our subtext is that we have every suit in our hands and can follow anyone's lead, thus preventing us from taking any tricks.)

I could easily pull this around to getting them to explain something from their familiar level of language to an audience of those who speak only professional (i.e. teacher's) English.

[amazonvera.livejournal.com]

That's a great idea, too. Or even just ask them to write or talk about something similarly shared but unique without specifying that it needs to be a different language, but suggesting that as a possibility. Like, "If any of you speak a second language sometimes at home, special sayings or inside jokes in that language can be perfect examples."

In my experience, it's just important to not be too heavy-handed about emphasizing an immigrant or descendant of recent immigrant child's culture. That can make them go in the opposite direction of what you want out of resentment or out of a desire to prove how assimilated they are. Again, these are kids who get all kinds of negative messages about their culture and their otherness outside your classroom.

[paka.livejournal.com]

I think it is that they carry some deep shame about who they are, and at some level would like to fit in and feel they never will be able to do so. Certainly I don't think I'm the only person who has ever felt that way.

So, I feel that it is a delicate issue, where the idea is to encourage the kids to believe that yeah, they are the reality of Canadian nationality without having to change - but without it feeling kind of, I don't know if this is a good word for it, "tokenistic"? I worry about getting the feeling that the adult world says you belong, but it's only superficial lip service and it deepens the feeling that you don't. I feel that it's good to push for change, just that how needs to be carefully done.

Again, I'm coming at this from my bias, not fitting in, in Georgia public school systems. And I know that modern Canadian schools are a lot more enlightened than that - so I may be very, very off here.

[integritysinger.livejournal.com]

maybe, when doing some brainstorming time before they begin, include brainstorming about names - ask them to give the name of an aunt or uncle, a cousin, sibling, etc. put al lthe names in a hat and they have to draw from the hat for the names of the characters in their story? just an idea. Perhaps, despite the regular discussion of cultures, it is still hard for them to consider that their cultures, ideals and religions count in ALL venues.

[velvetpage.livejournal.com]

That's not a bad idea.

[archai.livejournal.com]

More than foul language, more than violence, this is the lasting legacy of television in our modern global society.