Authors of Color Goal, 2020 Update

Reading Authors of Color, 2020 Update

*Quick note: if you're looking to diversify your reading list, please keep looking until you find someone of an ethnic group outside your own. This post is sharing my journey of trying to expand my own reading*

I started this Creative Writing and Book Review thing that you're reading about two and a half years ago and, thanks to many of my friends and people I follow, I developed an interest in diversifying my reading. At the time, I counted and learned I had only read ONE book by a person of color (Jhumpa Lahiri's The Lowland). 

I was pretty horrified by how easily I had left out entire groups of people and built my own echo chamber, so I decided to make some new lists (I posted about that here). I am preparing to be an English teacher, and my reading needs to show what kind of teacher I want to be: inclusive and empowering. I made it my goal to find books by people who didn't look like me, add them to my Goodreads to-be-read list, and then actually read them and learn from their experiences and stories. I'm sharing this now because a lot of people are either beginning or reinvigorating the same goal in their own life, and it got me thinking about how it has gone so far for me.

 

It has been harder than it looked to become even marginally more aware. I've been incredibly frustrated with myself as the last two and a half years haven't shown the fruit I wanted: I failed to finish many of the books I started and didn't start as many as I wanted. I was thinking I would be up to 20 or 30 books by now from ethnicities across the world and in America - that I would have gained a deep understanding of these people groups and their art.

But instead, I've completed about 13 books by authors of color since I made my goal, making my total about 14. It's better than 1, but far lower than 20 or 30. Still, just by sharing about my goal and chasing that dream, I've read 13 new books by BIPOC! I've chosen more diverse authors, styles, art, & music because I'm developing a bias against a white-washed world (for you Bible scholars: Matthew 23:27). I might live in a 95% white COUNTY (2010 census here in Adams County), but it is diversifying, especially with Hispanics. So I've reinvigorated my Spanish; I've read some good stuff; I've listened to some mind-opening music and podcasts. I'm currently reading a published doctoral thesis for educators about the inner world of immigrant children to help inform my teaching. The audiobook I'm enjoying right now is Tomi Adeyemi's Children of Blood and Bone, which is by a person of color.

My friends also started buying me books by people of color! So even though I've only read 13, 20 or so have been purchased. That's a start!

My worldview is still skewed, my world is still white, my ideas are still tainted by my place in the world. I am never going to be perfect. Even so, I am more aware. I am more equipped to hold my tongue or let it fly over what I see around me. I don't want anyone reading this to think I'm only reading: my family and I have been part of a local BLM protest, we're giving regularly to the NAACP and other related causes, and we're trying to be active listeners about other ways to support the movement toward diversity in all sectors of our lives. That is some of the fruit, but it's just a beginning. 

Thank you for reading. We've only got a few decades before we give this world over to our kids - let's make it the best we can.