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(APPLAUSE)
>>Paul Jaeger: They seem to be
multiplying out there.
So thank you, Jenny.
The main event tonight is the Anne Scott MacLeod
Lecture on Children's Literature.
There is a rather nice description of it on page
- I guess what would be page 4 of your program.
We rather smoothly forgot to number the pages.
You can find it, it's not that long.
So before we actually get to the lecture, the chair
of the MacLeod Lecture Committee, Maria Salvador
(ph) would like to share a few words about it.
>>Salvador: The Anne Scott MacLeod Children's
Literature Endowment was established to recognize
the importance of children's literature and
the inspiration that Dr. MacLeod provided to
many children's literature students - myself
included.
Dr. MacLeod, an MLS graduate and longtime
faculty with us, remains a leading expert and has
written extensively on 19th and 20th century
American children's literature.
It's my pleasure to bring greetings tonight from
Anne Scott MacLeod.
She writes, I wish I could be welcoming you in person
- unfortunately, I can't this time.
But I can - and do - send warmest greetings to you,
courtesy of Maria Salvador.
I know you will enjoy the lecture by Dr. Sandra
Hughes-Hassell.
I hope to hear it myself by virtue of some
electronic miracle, created to read it in the
old-tech way that doesn't disappear when the power
goes off.
I want to send special greetings to any of my
former students in the audience.
I always look forward to the lecture as a time I
can see some people who made my teaching career
such a joy.
I wish everyone in the audience a wonderful
evening.
I'll be thinking of you and I thank you for
coming. Thank you all.
(APPLAUSE)
>>Paul Jaeger: Thank you, Maria.
So our lecture tonight is part of a series that is
always devoted to scholarly issues in
children's literature.
OK.
Tonight is going to be - since it's tied to this
symposium on diversity issues in the field.
And we are extraordinarily lucky to have Sandra
Hughes-Hassell from the University of North
Carolina with us.
She is a professor and coordinator of their
School Library Media Program.
She is the author of five books.
OK, that's how many I know of.
"Urban Teens in the Library" was the most
recent and certainly worth reading.
She has done some just extraordinary work in the
intersection of children's and youth literature and
diversity issues.
And, for those of you who are students in the IDP
program, you are well familiar with her
writings.
So without further ado, our main event.
(APPLAUSE)
>>Sandra Hughes-Hassell: I want to
thank you for inviting me to take part in this -
what I also believe is an amazing symposium because
I also am very interested in leading the diversity
in our educational program as LIS professionals is
critical.
So I'm really happy to be here.
I'm also happy to deliver the Anne MacLeod
Children's Literature Lecture.
It gives me great pleasure to address this community
and to talk about a topic that I have been thinking
about for a long time.
The application of critical race theory to
Library and Information Science research and
practice.
My work is guided by three beliefs.
That racism is present in U.S.
institutions and cultures, and that we are all
negatively impacted by it.
That racial equity is critical, and can only be
achieved collectively.
And that libraries and literature have a powerful
role to play in creating a more just and equitable
society.
I also have a selfish reason for being
interested in this topic.
I have a 9-year-old son, and I hope for him to
live in a more just and equitable society.
So the title of my talk is "Multicultural Young
Adult Literature as a Form of Counter-Storytelling."
And I'd like to begin with a little history.
In 1965, educator Nancy Larrick brought national
attention to the need for multicultural literature
with her landmark study, "The All White World of
Children's Books." The impetus for this study -
one day when Larrick was visiting a preschool New
York City, a 5-year-old African-American girl who
was looking at a picture book asked her, why are
they all white?
Larrick's subsequent examination of the 5,206
children's books published between 1962 and 1964
revealed this that young girl's perceptions were
right.
The characters in the books were almost always
white.
Only 6.7 percent of the books that Larrick
examined included one or more black characters, and
less than 1 percent of those featured
contemporary African-Americans.
Most of the books were either historical fiction
or were set outside the United States.
Larrick identified two consequences of the
omission of African-Americans in books
for children.
First, across the country, 6 million non-white
children were learning to read and to understand the
American way of life in books that either omitted
them entirely or scarcely mentioned them.
Second, 39 million white children were learning
from their books that they were, as Larrick put it,
the king fish.
Larrick concluded that there seems to be little
chances of developing the humility so urgently
needed for world cooperation as long as
children are brought up on gentle doses of racism
through their books.
Larrick's study, combined with the growing awareness
of diversity spawned by the Civil Rights Movement,
led to the beginning of the multicultural
publishing movement in youth literature.
As has already been mentioned several
times tonight -- the need for multicultural
literature is even greater today than it was in 1965.
According to an analysis of the 2010 census data
completed by the Annie E.
Casey Foundation, there are currently 74.2 million
children under the age eighteen in the United
States.
Forty-six percent of them are children of color or
indigenous children.
All of the growth in the child population since
2000 has been among groups other than non-Hispanic
whites.
Three major groups have experienced significant
increases between 2000 and 2010.
Children of mixed race grew at a faster rate than
any other group over the past decade -- increasing
by 46 percent.
The number of Hispanic children grew by 39
percent.
The number of non-Hispanic, Asian and
Pacific-Islander children grew by 31 percent.
Today more than one-fifth of America's children are
immigrants or children of immigrants.
If these trends continue, demographers conclude that
soon there will be no majority racial or ethnic
group in the United States.
No one group that makes up more than 50 percent of
the total population.
So given that demographic landscape of United
States, one would expect the number of
multicultural books for youth publishing each year
to be significant.
Unfortunately that is not the case.
Since 1985, the Cooperative Children's
Book Center of the University of Madison,
Wisconsin -- Wisconsin, Madison -- has been
documenting the number of books published in the
United States for children and young adults each year
that are written and or illustrated by people of
color.
In 2011, the CCBC received approximately 3,400 books.
Of those books, only 8.8 percent were
multicultural.
Only 123 books had significant
African-American content, 28 books had
American-Indian themes topics or characters, 91
books had significant Asian-Pacific or
Asian-Pacific American content, and only 58 books
had significant Latino content.
So clearly the books published for children and
young adults do not reflect the youth that
live in our society and the world in which they
live.
So why is this continued lack of multicultural
literature problematic?
Why is the race or ethnicity of the people
portrayed in books so important?
Why, as I had a white student asked me once --
can't minority teens just imagine the characters to
be their race or ethnicity?
My cultural perspective doesn't affect my reading.
I just feel like I'm reading about people.
Numerous scholars have addressed this question,
but I'd like to share with you the reasons given by a
team, a teacher, and an author.
So we'll begin with the teen.
When my eighth grade teacher shared Milded
Taylor's "Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry" with the
class -- and added several pieces of black
literature to the classroom library -- it
was a pivotal moment for me.
For the first time in my life I realized that I was
not alone in the world.
There were other black girls having similar
experiences to mine and some had grown up and
written them down.
I began to write mine down too, with the hopes of
becoming a writer.
So now we turn to a teacher.
Greg Michie was a teacher in the Chicago Public
School System and in this passage I'm going to read
to you from his book, "Holler if You Hear Me."
He's talking about his students' reactions to
"The House on Mango Street." "Chanclas" was
the title of the story, and that's as far as
Alejandro got.
As soon as she read that word aloud, the girls all
burst out laughing.
I looked up from my book, puzzled as to what had
amused them.
What's so funny?
I don't know, Nancy said still giggling and
stealing a glance at Yohara.
That's just not the kind of word you expect to see
in a book.
It's like a nickname or something.
I've just never seen that word printed up in a book
before.
It's not that it's funny.
It's like an inside world word you know.
Like a word nobody outside knows.
You get me?
Nancy had described it perfectly, an inside word.
The more we read the clearer it became to me
that every story in that book was filled with such
elements -- little details and nuances that only
an insider -- a Mexican-American would
know.
Inside words, inside phrases, inside sights and
sounds.
Peaks into a world Nancy and the others knew well,
but had never foreseen within the pages of a
book.
And finally we turn to an author, Sharon Flake.
Black boys will read, but to get them off to a
flying start, we've got to give them books that
remind them of home -- who they are.
When this happens they fly through books even the
most challenged readers.
They hunger for the work like a homeless man
finally getting a meal that's a week overdue.
As these quotes demonstrate, we cannot
overestimate the power of seeing, or not seeing,
oneself in literature.
Culturally relevant literature allows teens to
establish personal connection with characters
-- increasing the likelihood that reading
will become an appealing activity.
It helps them identify with their own culture and
it engenders an appreciation of the
diversity that occurs both within and across racial
and ethnic groups.
But multicultural literature can do even
more.
As an integral part of the social and academic
context, I believe multicultural literature
can act as a counter-story to the dominant narrative
about people of color and indigenous people.
Daniel Solorzano and Tara Yosso define counter
storytelling as a method of telling the stories of
those people whose experiences are often not
told -- including people of color, women, gays and
the poor.
Counter-stories aim to cast doubt on the validity
of accepted premises or myths -- especially ones
held by the majority.
They offer a perspective that helps us both
understand what life is like for others and
invites readers into a new and unfamiliar world.
Richard Delgado, who introduced the concept,
argues that counter-stories -- sorry,
I forgot to put that up -- can quicken and engage
conscious -- stirring the imagination in ways in
which discourse that is more conventional can not.
Counter-stories can show us that what we believe is
inaccurate or false.
They can highlight exclusionary practices and
policies.
Delgado believes they can even help us understand
when it's time to reallocate power.
Delgado outlines a number of ways that
counter-storytelling benefits groups that have
traditionally been marginalized and oppressed
in the United States.
By telling and hearing counter-stories, members
of marginalized groups gain healing from becoming
familiar with their own historic oppression and
victimization, realize that they are not alone --
that others have the same thoughts and experiences
-- stop blaming themselves for their marginal
position and construct additional counter-stories
to challenge the dominant story.
Members of the majority culture also benefit from
hearing counter-stories.
Delgado argues that counter-stories can help
them overcome their ethnocentrism and the
unthinking conviction that their way of seeing the
world is the only one -- that the way things are is
inevitable, natural, just and best.
As a counter-storytelling tool, I believe that
multicultural literature for young adults serves a
number of similar purposes.
It gives voice to teens whose voices have gone
unheard -- and whose lives are, at best,
underrepresented -- but most often misrepresented
in the mainstream discourse.
It challenges the single-story -- providing
a powerful space of affirmation and
validation.
It presents the complexity of racial and ethnic
identity formation.
And it challenges readers whose lives have been
shaped by race and privilege to consider how
the world looks to groups of people that have
traditionally been marginalized and oppressed
-- raising awareness of the inequities they face
on a daily basis.
So how does multicultural literature for young
adults do this?
Let's begin with challenging the
single-story.
Despite the demographic diversity of the United
States, many Americans still live in segregated
communities -- where they are unlikely to encounter
individuals who are racially, ethnically or
socioeconomically different from themselves.
Multicultural literature bridges the racial and
class-based isolation that prevents the sharing of
diverse experiences across racial, ethnic, class and
cultural lines.
This counter-story, it helps disrupt what
Nigerian writer, Chimamanda Adichie, refers
to as the single-story.
Teenagers of color and indigenous people are
often victims of the single-story.
Latino teens are routinely depicted in the mainstream
discourse as low achievers, high school
dropouts, teen parents or violent gang members --
all stereotypes that paint a picture of an
unassimilated population marked primarily by
exclusion and difference.
The dominant narrative regularly portrays young
African American males as criminals and crime
victims -- and African American girls as having
one asset -- their sexuality.
Asian-Pacific Americans, as a rule, are depicted as
star students -- especially in math and
science -- supported by industrious,
entrepreneurial and upwardly mobile parents.
And American-Indians are typically portrayed as
people of the past -- not of the present or the
future.
Adichie argues that the single-story is dangerous.
She explains -- the single-story creates
stereotypes.
And the problem with stereotypes is not that
they are untrue -- but that they are incomplete.
They make one story become the only story.
The definitive story of a people.
And in most cases the single-story reinforces
the deficit-oriented stance toward teens of
color.
A stance that represents their race, ethnicity,
culture and/or language as limitations.
Sharon Flake's poem, "You Don't Even Know Me,"
provides an example of the single-story -- more
importantly, it demonstrates how
multicultural literature can challenge the
single-story.
(POEM)
>>Unidentified Male 1: You don't know a thing about me.
>>Unidentified Male 2: You don't know a thing about me.
>>Unidentified Male 3: You don't know a thing about me.
>>Unidentified Male 4: And you still don't know a thing about me.
>>Sandra Hughes-Hassell: Sorry, I don't know why it
did that.
>>Unidentified Speaker: If you click one more time it
will un-plus.
(POEM)
>>Unidentified Male 1: I sit in your class and I play
by the rules.
I'm young.
I'm fly.
I'm black.
So of course I think I'm cool.
Geometry is my thing and physics is just a breeze.
So it bothered me last week when you said I
should be happy with that C.
So I've just been wondering lately -- trying
to figure out this -- how it could be -- that you're
around me so often -- and still don't know a thing
about me.
>>Unidentified Male 2: You see me on TV -- marching
in the band.
Then you flip the channel, and there I am again --
cuffs on my hand, my coat over my head -- the news
anchors wondering that I'm something you should
dread.
The police say I'm a menace -- that you should
be on the alert.
The nightly news recounts all the people that they
say I've hurt.
The mayor says I'm a threat.
The psychologist calls me depressed.
The guys don't know what's up with me, so they make
up all the rest.
You know, I've been wondering lately -- trying
to figure out just how could be -- that you could
see me so often and you still don't know a thing
about me.
>>Unidentified Male 3: I live next door to you.
You see me on the bus.
Sometimes you even tell me ciao, just be quiet, just
'cause.
Then I'm out with my boys -- 2, 5, or even 10.
It's funny when that happens.
You don't seem to know me then.
I'm just another black boy -- a threatening, scary
sight -- a tall, dark, eerie shadow moving toward
you late at night.
You know, I've been wondering lately -- just
how it could be -- that you talk to me so often
and still don't know a thing about me.
>>Unidentified Male 4: We hang out on the corner
together, holding up the wall.
I tell you about my dream, you just want to talk
basketball.
I pull out my plans -- detailing the cities I'll
rebuild one day -- swearing that the people
will know my name across the U.S.A.
You tell me to quit fronting.
You ask who I think I am -- pretending that I'm
better than you -- you know I really am.
You talk about my house -- the clothes I wear
sometimes -- then you really hit me with what
been's on your mind.
I've been wondering lately -- trying to figure out
just how it can be -- that we call each other
"brother" and you still don't know a thing about me.
>>Unidentified Male 5: Last night I had a dream.
I flew right past the stars.
Nobody was holding their pocketbooks and double
locking their cars.
I chatted with the moon -- calculated the
circumference of the sun -- but before I woke up, I
decided to take a run.
I ran across the Milky Way -- stole a peak at
Saturn's ring -- hip-hopped across the
universe.
I was me.
I can do anything.
But then I dived into a million black holes --
resting my feet in the North and South Pole --
slipped into my mother's dreams, my daddy's
nightmares, too -- we talked about my future and
the great things I will do.
>>Unidentified Male 1: But dreams don't last forever
and night turns into day.
>>Unidentified Male 2: But people who don't know you
try to block tomorrow's way.
>>Unidentified Male 3: But nothing can ever stop me
or keep me from what's mine.
>>Unidentified Male 4: The stars on fire
>>Unidentified Male 1: inside me, shining, refining,
>>Unidentified Male 2: reminding me that
I define me and the brightness of my destiny.
>>Unidentified Male 3: The brightness of my destiny.
>>Unidentified Male 4: My destiny.
>>Unidentified Male 1: The brightness of my destiny.
>>Unidentified Male 2: The brightness of my destiny.
>>Unidentified Male 3: The brightness
>>Unidentified Male 1, 2, 3, 4: of our destiny.
>>Sandra Hughes-Hassell: Sorry.
This is why you shouldn't have slides.
So these young men that
are in this -- performed this poem that Sharon
Flake wrote -- in the poem, the way that she has
constructed it -- there we go -- they have clearly
experienced the single-story -- yet they
have actively resisted being pigeonholed by their
teachers, by their neighbors, the media and
even their friends.
Instead, they use their voices to counteract that
single-story -- to fight back -- declaring that
they are scholars, musicians, neighbors,
builders and dreamers.
A novel that challenges the single-story is "The
First Part Last" by Angela Johnson.
In this novel, 16-year-old Bobby becomes a single
father when his girlfriend, Nia, lapses
into a permanent coma during childbirth.
How does this story challenge -- this book
challenge the single-story?
Bobby and Nia are both from upper-middle-class
homes and plan to attend college.
Their parents are professionals who provide
nourishing home environments.
Bobby and Nia take sex seriously and are shown
valuing their relationship.
Despite pressure from his and Nia's parents to give
the baby up for adoption, Bobby takes responsibility
for raising Feather while continuing to go to
school.
Is Bobby perfect?
No.
That would make the story unbelievable.
He skips school, he gets arrested for
spray-painting graffiti art on the wall -- he even
forgets to pick Feather up from the babysitter's one
day.
However, his story -- the story of a middle-class,
caring, responsible and committed 16-year-old
black male defies the distorted image of black
males represented in media.
Multicultural literature can not only challenge the
single-story -- as Johnson's novel does --
but can also encourage and empower teens of color and
indigenous peoples to take action in their own lives
and in the world around them.
It does this not by denying the hardship and
prejudice that many of them face, but by showing
that despite the disadvantages that
correlate with their skin color, culture and/or
social class, they can overcome the constraints
placed on them by the dominant culture and
represented by the single-story.
One book that does this is "We Beat the Street."
This nonfiction text chronicles the journey of
three friends -- Sampson, George and Rameck -- from
a tough neighborhood in Newark, New Jersey, to
college and then to medical school.
Their journey is not trouble-free.
Along the way they make mistakes, face
disappointments and nearly fail.
In order to succeed, they must resist buying into
the single-story themselves and allowing
others to use the single-story to define
them.
Not long after arriving at Seton Hall, Rameck
severely injures another student who dares to
challenge him in front of his cousins.
Rameck explains, "I had to learn control.
By no means did I want to forget where I came from
or lose my culture.
I just needed to modify my behavior.
I had to learn to face a challenge without a
violent reaction.
I had never been exposed to anything else.
I gradually learned to discipline myself, so that
I could deal with challenges with my mind
instead of my fist." At another point, Rameck's
dreams are almost ended again -- this time by a
justice system that adheres to the
single-story of young black men as perpetrators
of crime.
As Rameck and his friend, Dax, a law student, were
driving home from a professional prizefight
one night -- they were followed by the police.
"Why are they sweating us man?
Dax said.
We ain't done nothing wrong.
Not one thing. It's not about being wrong, it's
about being black, Rameck said, anger and regret in
his voice.
Why do they assume we're up to no good?
Dax asked bleakly.
'Who knows? Rameck answered,
as the three police cars followed
their every turn and stop.
D.W.B., "Driving While Black" -- it is the newest
crime, don't you know?
The two young men are stopped, frisked and their
car searched.
One of the officers finds a small fishing knife in
the glove compartment.
Rameck is arrested and charged with interfering
with a police officer and possession of a deadly
weapon.
He has cleared the charges only because the police
lose the knife." These two books and Flake's poem
challenge the single-story.
They feature young black men who value education --
who have aspirations -- who have a sense of
personal responsibility -- and who are self-reliant
and resilient.
They feature protagonists who never give up, despite
the difficulties they face -- who hold hope of
achieving success and who take steps towards getting
there.
Another way that young adult literature can act
as a counter-story is to talk about the racial and
ethnic identity development and complexity
of it.
For teens of color and indigenous teens,
coming-of-age is intricately tied to the
process of racial and ethnic identity formation.
Though identity formation is a critical task for all
adolescents, researchers have found that
adolescents of color and indigenous teens are more
likely to be actively engaged in exploring their
race and ethnic identity than are white
adolescents.
As Beverly Tatum explains, teens of color, indigenous
teens and biracial teens think of themselves in
terms of race or ethnicity because that's how the
rest of the world sees them.
On a daily basis they must navigate a world where
other people are making assumptions about who they
are and what they can achieve based on their
skin color.
Psychologist William Cross has proposed a
theory of racial identity development that contains
five stages.
The first two stages are pertinent to adolescence.
In the pre-encounter stage, children of color
and indigenous children absorb many of the beliefs
and values of dominant white culture -- including
the belief that it is better to be white.
Stereotypes, omissions and distortions combined with
an image of white superiority to some degree
socialize children of color and indigenous
children to value the role models, lifestyles and
images of beauty of white culture over those of
their own cultural group.
In the second stage, the encounter stage --
children of color and indigenous children become
aware of the impact of racism.
This stage usually occurs during late adolescence,
but it may begin as early as middle school.
In this stage, children of color and indigenous
children begin to wrestle with what it means to be a
member of a group that is targeted by racism.
Often this awakening is precipitated by a series
of events -- examples include, seeing a Hispanic
parent asked to provide proof of citizenship when
he is leaving his place of employment -- being
followed around by security guards at the
mall -- or viewing media images of police brutality
against persons of color.
As Beverly Tatum points out, to find ones racial
or ethnic identity, one must deal with these
negative stereotypes -- resist internalizing
negative self-perceptions and affirm the meaning of
ethnicity for oneself.
This entails answering questions like "what does
it mean to be a black, Asian, Hispanic or
American-Indian person?"
"How should I act?"
"What should I do?"
For biracial teens, this question is further
complicated by the question "what am I?"
As teens struggle with these questions they often
seek support from other teens who belong to the
same racial, ethnic or cultural group -- others
who understand their perspective and who have
experienced similar stereotypes or prejudices
-- and this is where multicultural literature
can play a powerful role.
One of the key goals of counter-storytelling is to
give voice to the lived experiences of groups that
have traditionally been marginalized and oppressed
in the United States.
By reading multicultural literature, teens of color
and indigenous teens gain insight into how other
teens who share their racial, ethnic or cultural
backgrounds have affirmed their own identities.
Born Confused tells the story of Dimple Lala, a
17-year-old, first-generation Indian
American growing up in New Jersey.
The end of her junior year in high school marks the
beginning of a journey of self-discovery for Dimple.
When she realizes that she is ABCD -- an American
born confused Desi.
So I was in ABCD.
Why hadn't anybody told me?
Why didn't they put in the spots where they say race
doesn't matter, but please check one of the
following?
Growing up I was always X-ing Asian Pacific
Islander, even though I didn't understand why they
were treated as the same thing.
It would've been so much easier to check ABCD.
I wondered if I'd ever be ABD, but for now, I was
ABCD.
I didn't really know what it meant, but I suppose
that was the point.
That summer, Dimple immerses herself in the
vibrant South Asian club culture in New York City,
attends a student conference at NYU on South
Asian identity, and begins dating a young man who is
Indian American.
Throughout the novel she deals not only with the
stereotypes others have of Indian Americans, like
Julian, who believes all Indian girls were gifted
in the art of sex, but with her own stereotypes
about Indian Americans.
Readers of the book watched Dimple embrace her
Indian culture as a positive part of her
identity and find a way to fit the two cultures
together.
The author explains her motivation for writing the
novel in an interview.
She said I hadn't read any books, I could recall with
a South Asian American teen protagonist.
To the best of my knowledge, Born Confused
was the first book with the U.S.
female teen Desi heroine.
That was one of the reasons my publisher
wanted it, and it's certainly one of the
reasons I wrote.
It was, and is important to me that a young South
Asian American have a voice, and that it be
heard and be read by people of all backgrounds
and ages.
And it was just as important that other South
Asian American voices be heard.
More out there -- the more we can begin to
approximate expressing the richness and diversity of
this culture -- a culture that is as diverse as the
number of people who make it up.
The Mexican WhiteBoy, Matt de la Pena provides
insight into the challenges of biracial
teens face as they try to forge their identity.
Danny Lopez yearns to be accepted by both of the
two worlds he's caught between -- that of his
white mother and classmates, and that of
his Mexican father.
De la Pena writes, and Danny's brown -- half
Mexican brown -- a shade darker than all the white
kids at his private high school.
Up there, Mexican people do under the table yard
work and hide out in the hills because they're in
San Diego illegally.
All the other people on the campus who share his
shade are the lunch line ladies, the gardeners, the
custodians.
But whenever Danny comes down here, to National
City, where his dad grew up, where all of his aunts
and uncles and cousins live, he feels pale, a
full shade lighter -- albino, almost -- less
than.
When Danny decides to spend the summer
with his father's relatives in an attempt to
re-forge his identity, he finds that he simply can't
flip some Mexican switch and fit right in with his
extended family.
He's lighter skinned and better educated.
He speaks poor Spanish and he knows nothing of the
teen culture in which his cousins live.
His frustration with not fitting in leads him to
stop talking and to engage in self-mutilation.
Danny's experiences mirror those observed by
researchers who studied biracial identity
formation.
According to Walker Poston, biracial teens
often experience guilt at not being able to identify
with all aspects of their heritage, and this guilt
frequently leads to anger, shame and self-hatred.
Resolving the guilt and anger is necessary for
achieving a multicultural existence in which teens
value all of their ethnic or racial identities.
By the end of "Mexican WhiteBoy," after a summer
spent playing baseball and getting to understand his
Mexican heritage better, Danny has gained strength,
confidence and self-awareness, declaring
I'm me -- I'm just myself -- that's it.
As these two examples demonstrate, multicultural
young adult literature can provide teens of color and
indigenous teens with insight into the process
of racial and ethnic identity development.
It can provide identity learning experiences and
it can help them understand the unique
challenges they face.
It can provide role models and support that may be
missing in their schools, their homes and their
communities.
Central to counter-storytelling is the
examination of racism and its impact on people of
color and indigenous people.
Racism is defined as a system of advantage based
on race.
A system that involves cultural messages and
institutional policies and practices, as well as the
beliefs and actions of individuals.
The systematic advantages that are conferred on
whites, as a result of racism, are often referred
to as white privilege.
These privileges include greater access to housing,
jobs and healthcare, as well as an impartial
justice system.
As Beverly Tatum points out, despite rhetoric to
the contrary, every social indicator from salary to
life expectancy reveals the advantages of being
white.
Discussions about issues of race and racism often
elicit anger, denial, guilt and defensiveness.
White people often feel vulnerable and attacked
for being white and prefer to believe that the
problem is not that racism's present, but that
it's being talked about.
People of color and indigenous people, too,
may be uncomfortable, feeling as though they are
being asked to speak for their entire racial,
ethnic or cultural group.
Multicultural literature can serve as a vehicle for
overcoming the silences and discomfort that
prevent open dialogue.
As counter-story, it is nonconfrontational -- it
invites the reader to suspend judgment, listen
for the point for the message and determine the
truth the story contains.
It acts as both a mirror, allowing teens of color
and indigenous people to reflect on their own
experiences, and as a window, providing the
opportunity for white teens to view experiences
of others.
The text becomes the tool for a conversation about
race and racism.
Many authors of young adult literature take a
critical look at the impact of racism and
poverty on the lived experiences of people of
color and indigenous peoples.
Their characters are aware of the privileges white
middle class teens share and recognize how much
less they have simply because of the virtue of
their birthright.
They're aware of the institutionalized racism
present in the economic, educational and judicial
system.
In "Ball Don't Lie," Matt de la Pena explores the
concept of white privilege, challenging the
idea that the United States is a land of
opportunity where anyone can succeed if they just
pull up hard enough on their bootstraps.
In this scene, Dante, a young African-American
male, explains the futility of believing the
idea of the American dream to Sticky, the novel's
protagonist.
Dante reaches down to grab a couple of stones off the
ground.
See that wall in front of you, he says?
In America, life's like a race to that wall.
That's the way I see it.
He sets the first stone down less than a foot from
the wall, points and says, if you're born white and
got money then you start the race way up here,
ahead of everybody.
But say you ain't white and rich, say you're poor
and black, or you're Mexican, Puerto Rican.
You may not even have enough food to eat a
balanced meal every night.
In this case, you starting the race of life way back
here.
He points to the second stone.
Only a fool would think someone who starts here
has the same opportunity as the cat starting at the
first stone.
Nikki Grimes, too, examines the idea of white
privilege in "Bronx Masquerade." At the
beginning of the novel, Tyrone, a teenage
African-American male, explains -- white folks,
who they think they kidding, they might as
well go blow smoke up somebody else's
you-know-what because a black man's got no chance
in this country.
I be lucky if I make it to 21 with all these fools
running around with AK-47s.
Life is cold.
Future?
What I got is right now, right here, spending time
with my homies.
I wish there was some future to talk about, I
could use me some future.
Unfortunately, national statistics support Dante
and Tyrone's perspectives.
In 2010, 8 percent of black males, 15.1 percent
of Hispanic males and 12.4 percent -- let me say that
again, sorry -- 8 percent of black teens, 15.1
percent of Hispanic teens and 12.4 percent of
American Indians dropped out of high school as
compared to 5.1 percent of white teens.
The national unemployment rate for African Americans
is 15.9 percent percent, 15.2 percent for American
Indians and 11.5 percent for Latinos.
In some metropolitan communities, the
African-American unemployment rate is three
times the white rate and the Latino unemployment
rate is twice the white rate.
Approximately 27.7 percent of all black persons, 26.6
percent of all Hispanic persons and 24.8 percent
of American Indians live in poverty as compared to
9.9 percent of all non-hispanic white
persons.
In "Black and White," Paul Volponi provides a
realistic look at the realities of the juvenile
justice system when two star high school
basketball players, one black and one white,
commit a crime.
Marcus is black and Eddie is white.
Known as "black and white," the two best
friends are in the middle of basketball season,
headed to the playoffs and scholarships to good
colleges.
In need of money, they borrow Eddie's
grandfather's handgun and pull a series of robberies
in dark parking lots.
One night Eddie shoots one of the victims, he
survives and identifies Marcus as the assailant.
It isn't long before Eddie is implicated as well but
nobody can identify him with the same degree of
certainty.
Eddie won't confess and Marcus won't betray.
Although the two boys say they've gotten past all
that racial crap, they find out that racism is
entrenched in the justice system and impacts how
they are treated.
Marcus is given a court ordered -- appointed a
lawyer, and Eddie's family is able to afford an
attorney.
In the end, Marcus ends up in jail for 19 months,
while Eddie avoids the truth and heads off to
college.
The reality of Marcus' situation is captured in
interchange between the two of them.
The book is written one chapter in Eddie's voice
and one chapter in Marcus's voice, so this
chapter is in Eddie's voice.
Eddie, I don't think taking this case to
trial's going to work for me, he blurted out.
Parker knows it was me, and I don't think I can
pretend it wasn't.
I don't want to screw this up for you.
Maybe your lawyer is smarter than mine.
Miss Torres doesn't think there's a thing she can do
to make me look good.
I need to take whatever she can get me.
Whatever she can get for you?
What about me, brother?
You want to plead guilty?
But that's going to hurt my case.
Do you get some kind of points from the D.A.
for that, I yelled at him?
You lousy little ***, he screamed, wrapping both of
hands around my jacket collar, he drove me back
against the side of a brick building and I felt
the air pop out of my lungs when I hit.
We got into this mess together, but it's just me
paying for it.
And I haven't complained one F-ing inch about it,
he seethed, with his face pressed up against mine.
And all you want to know is how I can keep you
clean?
Volponi's portrayal of Marcus and Eddie's
different paths through the justice system is real
and a growing concern.
According to the Annie E.
Casey Foundation, compared to the treatment received
by white youth, policies, practices and stereotypes
within the juvenile justice system work
against youth of color and expose them to greater
vulnerability for juvenile detention and compromised
outcomes.
African-American and Latino youth experience
stereotyping and a consequent discrimination
at every step of the intake and adjudication
process -- including disproportionate arrest
using anti-gang laws, disparate assignment of
motivation and blame, harmful labeling as super
predators, inadequate assessment of available
family and community resources for detention
alternatives and the claim that these youth expect to
go to prison.
In his book, "The Absolutely True Diary of a
Part-Time Indian," Alexie Sherman depicts the
struggles, injustices and long-lasting effects of
historical oppression toward American Indians.
Fourteen-year-old Arnold Spirit, Junior, lives on
the Spokane Indian reservation in Washington
state.
During his first day at high school, Junior
discovers that his geometry textbook is so
old that his mother had used it.
In anger, he throws the book at his teacher and is
suspended.
This act of defiance leads Junior, at the insistence
of his teacher, to transfer from the
reservation school to Reardan, an all-white
school, 22 miles away.
There, Junior attempts to bridge Indian and white
cultures -- while at home, he copes with a community
and a family ravaged by alcoholism and faces the
controversy and guilt of leaving the reservation
and his own culture.
I'd like to share two scenes from this book that
illustrate the issues that Junior, and many
contemporary American Indian teens, face -- how
to succeed academically in underfunded and culturally
unresponsive schools -- and how to live in the
modern world without ceasing to be Indian --
and I'll begin with the textbook incident.
I grabbed my book and opened it.
I wanted to smell it.
Heck, I wanted to kiss it.
Yes, kiss it.
But my lips and I stopped short when I saw this
written on the inside front cover.
This book belongs to Agnes Adams.
OK, now you're probably asking yourself who is
Agnes Adams?
Well, let me tell you.
Agnes Adams is my mother.
My mother.
And Adams is her maiden name.
So that means I was staring at a geometry book that
was at least 30 years older than I was.
I couldn't believe it.
How horrible was that?
My school and my tribe are so poor and so sad that we
have to study from the same dang books our
parents studied from.
This is absolutely the saddest thing in the
world.
And let me tell you, that old, old, old decrepit
geometry book hit my heart with the force of an
atomic bomb.
My hopes and dreams floated up in a mushroom
cloud.
What do you do when the world has declared nuclear
war on you?
And now we'll fast forward to the end of the
book -- the day the Reardan basketball team,
this is the white school, defeats the reservation
team, and Junior is playing for Reardan.
The buzzer sounded -- the game was over -- we had
killed the Redskins.
Yep we had humiliated them.
We had defeated the enemy -- we had defeated the
champions.
We were David, who'd thrown his stone into the
brain of Goliath.
And then I realized something -- I realized
that my team -- the Reardan Indians -- was
Goliath.
I looked over at the Wellpinit Redskins -- at
Rowdy, my friend.
I knew that two or three of those Indians might not
have eaten breakfast this morning -- no food in the
house.
I knew that seven or eight of those Indians lived
with drunken mothers and fathers.
I knew that one of those Indians had a father who
dealt crack and ***.
I knew two of those Indians had fathers in
prison.
I knew none of them were going to college.
Not one of them.
I suddenly wanted to apologize to Rowdy -- to
all of those Spokane's.
I was suddenly ashamed.
I ran into the bathroom -- into a toilet stall and
threw up -- and then I wept -- like a baby.
In 2009, the Department of Education conducted
consultations with federally recognized
American Indian tribes and American Indian school
officials and educators across the United States.
Across the board, tribal and American Indian
educators expressed concern regarding funding
for the education of American Indian children
-- citing subpar school facilities, limited access
to early childhood education, inadequate
access to technology and shortages of qualified
teaching personnel as the consequences of funding
shortages, just to name a few.
These inequities apply to schools operated by the
Bureau of Indian Education as well as the regular
public schools that many American Indian students
attend.
According to the tribal and American Indian
educators, the failure of the American government to
provide a quality education for American
Indian students has contributed to the
perpetuation of a vicious cycle of limited economic
opportunities among American Indian
communities -- resulting in significant health,
welfare and justice inequities.
In order to succeed, many American Indian youth feel
compelled, like Junior, to reject their Indian
culture.
Tribal and American Indian educators contend that
school curricula should include Native American
languages and histories and reinforce a positive
image of American Indian cultures.
As one individual noted, administrators and
teachers need to be more aware of the native
culture of their students -- because if we
acknowledge their culture, it makes them feel valued
and gives them self-identity.
As these three titles show, multicultural
literature as counter-story can make the
oppression and victimization of people of
color and indigenous people visible -- visible
to themselves and to the majority culture.
It can show that racism and inequality still exist
in contemporary American society -- it can help
teens understand racism as a system of advantage, not
as individual acts of meanness -- a system that
is perpetuated when we do not acknowledge its
existence.
As Beverly Tatum argues, talking about racism is an
essential part of facing racism and changing it.
Multicultural literature as counter-story provides
a platform for these conversations.
So to recap, multicultural literature
acts as counter-story -- it gives voice to those
who have been taught to hide their emotions -- it
speaks to the power of the individual and to the
collective -- it shows teens of color and
indigenous people defining themselves and engaging in
problem solving and it emphasizes the importance
of self-reliance and self-determination.
It allows teens in the majority culture to see
how the world looks from someone else's perspective
-- it challenges their assumptions, jars their
complacency and invites them to action.
As Richard Delgado says, stories are the oldest,
most primordial meeting ground in human
experience.
Their allure will provide the most effective means
of overcoming otherness and informing a new
collectivity of based on shared story.
And I'd like to end by reading you a poem by
Tupac -- and Tupac, for those of you who don't
know, was one of the most influential rap artists of
all time.
And he believed that through art, we could
incite a new revolution.
It incorporated the heart, mind, body, spirit and
soul.
And although he died in 1996, his poetry and his
music is still popular with teens and young
adults today.
And this poem was written when he was 19, so he was
a young adult -- and I think that as a
counter-story, it captures where we are today and
where we're trying to go.
And it's called "And 2Morrow." "And 2Morrow."
Today is filled with anger, fueled with hidden
hate.
Scared of being outcast, afraid of common fate.
Today is built on tragedies, which no one
wants to face.
Nightmares to humanities and morally disgraced.
Tonight is filled with rage, violence in the air.
Children bred with ruthlessness because no
one at home cares.
Tonight I lay my head down, but the pressure
never stops.
Gnawing at my sanity, content when I am dropped.
But tomorrow I see change.
A chance to build anew.
Built on spirit, intent of heart and ideals based on
truth.
And tomorrow I wake with second wind and strong
because of pride, to know I fought with all my heart
to keep my dream alive.
Thank you.
(APPLAUSE)
>>Sandra Hughes-Hassell: I think we
have time for questions, Becka?
Do I need to stand here?
>>Unidentified Speaker: Yeah, I think that if --
I'm going to wait to see if any questions do come
in, but I'm sure everyone in this room probably has
a lot to ask you.
>>Sandra Hughes-Hassell: Yes ma'am.
>>Unidentified Speaker: As a researcher in this
area and a Caucasian female do you encounter
issues when you're trying to collect data and
present your findings and that kind of thing?
>>Sandra Hughes-Hassell: I don't have problems
collecting data.
I've worked with a number of children of color,
teens of color.
They are open to being part of the research
process and that's how I frame it, from, I invite
them to be co-researchers with me and with my
colleagues because, again, as part of critical race
theory and a part of what I'm trying to do is give
voice to those teens whose voices have not been heard --
or to the children whose voices have not been
heard.
In terms of presenting, it, yes.
It's often hard to get published, and yes.
(LAUGHTER)
>>Sandra Hughes-Hassell: And some
of that is, for me, in terms of presenting to
audiences, I'm very conscious of the fact that
I am white and that I have lived a privileged life.
And, as I said earlier, a lot of my impetus for this
is because of my son.
He goes to a Quaker school and at that school, issues
of social justice, conversation about race
and racism are very much a part of their daily life
and that has really given me the strength and
courage to take that forward as well.
Any other questions?
Yes ma'am.
>>Unidentified Speaker: One issue is, with having
a diverse literature, is who writes it?
Do you also investigate that?
>>Sandra Hughes-Hassell: All of the books...
>>Unidentified Speaker: Or discuss that?
>>Sandra Hughes-Hassell: Yes, I do.
All of the resources I shared with you today were
written by authors who are of the same race or
ethnicity as the characters that they write
about.
And I think that the importance of that is that
they have had that lived experience.
They also, it goes back to your point of credibility,
they have credibility as authors.
So in my class we read "Absolutely True Diary of
a Young Adult-- Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time
Indian" and one of the conversations we have is
could someone have written that book if they had not
been American Indian?
That is Alexie Sherman's story, you know, it's
autobiographical.
And so I think there's more credibility in his
telling that story and being able to say the
things that he says about what we would see as the
single-story of American Indians.
He doesn't pretend like the alcoholism is not
there.
He doesn't pretend that the poverty's not there.
He doesn't pretend like the domestic violence is
not there.
But he doesn't stop with that as the story, he also
shows that even though Junior, Alexie's parents,
were both -- his father was an alcoholic, his
mother was a recovering alcoholic.
They care deeply about him.
They make sure he gets the 22 miles to school even
though they don't have money, they don't have a
car and so he shows that the tribe is not a
deficit-only model, that there's something else
there, that there is richness, that there is
strength and that that strength is also important
and needs to be recognized in our society and in the
literature.
So I am very conscious of making sure that the books
I bring forward to my students and that I share
have -- are written by people who have had these
experiences.
Yes?
>>Unidentified Speaker: I think at the beginning you
alluded that some of the mainstream publishers are
not, maybe, publishing some of these types of
stories.
I'm wondering now that more, you know,
self-publishing and different software, have
you seen any change or improvement, you know, in
that area?
>>Sandra Hughes-Hassell: The literature, it's out
there, but a lot of it is published by -- is
self-published or it's published by small
presses, so if you go to the Council for -- to the
CCBC, the University of Wisconsin at Madison's
website, they have a list of small publishing
companies with people who will publish
African-American literature, Latino
literature etc., etc. One of the problems that, I
think that, we face as librarians is that many
times we feel compelled to buy books from one vendor,
you know, or we are told that we have to buy books
that you have reviews for.
Well, lots of these books that are published by
small presses aren't reviewed because in order
to get your book reviewed, you have to send your
books out to reviewers.
Well, if I'm a small press, I don't have the
money to send my book out to big, to reviewers like
HarperCollins does with their books.
So, not having reviews is one issue, and then again,
saying, well I can't buy these books because I have
to go with this one vendor is another issue.
And so as librarians, public librarians and
school librarians, we need to come up with strategies
-- from my perspective -- we need to come up with
strategies to work around those things if we're
really committed to providing this kind of
literature for our children.
There is more of it out there than there, you
know, was in the past because it is published by
small presses and by individuals.
We just, we need to buy it.
We need to stop -- this is my soapbox -- we have a
lot of money.
We spend a lot of money in public and school
libraries.
If we just said, sorry, not buying that, that
doesn't meet the needs of our kids.
The publishing houses would start publishing
what we need.
They are walking with their money, and that's
how they make their decisions and we feed into
that because, from my perspective, because we
continue to buy what they produce rather than saying
this does not meet our needs.
You need to produce what we need to meet the needs
of the kids that we are working with today, not
from 1965.
I mean, those numbers are even worse than they were
in 1965, if you do the percentages.
We have all, 8.8 percent of all those cultural
groups.
In '65, it was 6.7 percent just looking at one
community.
Yes ma'am.
>>Unidentified Speaker: When I think of diversity,
I also think of, you know, gay and lesbian
literature, special needs.
In your research, what have you been finding
about those kinds of books?
I know Autism suddenly became a hot topic about a
year ago in books, but...
>>Sandra Hughes-Hassell: I've haven't really looked
at the literature itself but I've looked at some of
the representation of that, again, in school
library collections, so I was just telling Megga (ph),
I just finished a study that's going to be
published in school library research.
We looked at 125 schools in a southern state, high
school libraries, to see what percentage of titles
that they had that represented LGBTQ issues.
And we held their collections against a core
list of fiction titles and nonfiction titles.
And then we searched their OPACs using Library of
Congress sub -- not Library of Congress, Dewey
subject heading -- not Dewey, what was that --
Sears, Sears subject headings like
homosexuality, lesbian, gay, whatever and what we
found that was only point, on average, of 125 school
libraries, only .4 percent
of their collections --
.04 percent of their collections had any
representation of LGBTQ teens.
Now, I had a really hard time getting that study
published.
And the reason I had a hard time getting that
study published is because I was arguing that school
libraries should be collecting those
resources.
And the pushback I got was that school libraries are
meant to support the curriculum of the school
and that these books would be challenged.
Well, yeah, they're going to be challenged but we
know that 5.9 percent of high school populations
are made up of LGBTQ teens.
The latest, the 2011 list in climate studies show
that the harassment of LGBTQ teens has dropped in
schools where resources are provided.
So we need, again, to step up to the plate and
provide the resources that are necessary to meet the
needs of those teens as well.
As I was writing this speech, when I first
started off, I was like, I'm going to talk about
all these issues of diversity and then I
decided I needed to bring it down just to one issue
but you're absolutely right, as Paul said
earlier and Jenny said, all aspects of diversity
are important for us to be supporting.
Yes, Becka.
>>Unidentified Speaker: We have a question from the
overflow room.
Go ahead with your question please.
>>Unidentified Speaker: So I was wondering if you are
aware of any small press multicultural co-ops or
consortium of people coming together.
>>Sandra Hughes-Hassell: I actually don't know, but I
bet there are some, I just don't know of them.
So again I would go to that CCBC website and see
what they have listed there.
That's great, I'm sure that's happening, I would
expect it would be happening.
>>Unidentified Speaker: Thank you.
>>Sandra Hughes-Hassell: Yes?
>>Unidentified Speaker: I actually have a question
from me.
Thank you, first of all, for a fantastic lecture.
It was really a treat.
I wanted to ask about how do you see
counter-storytelling in the 21st century as being
part of transmedia and transliteracies?
It's wonderful to hear literature and poems and
then see the poems being performed on YouTube and
is that something that you see as maybe strengthening
the power of counter-storytelling by
having it not necessarily be bound by text?
>>Sandra Hughes-Hassell: Yes so I was telling,
Dr. Ehrlich (ph), you don't probably remember
this, but so there's a group in Chapel Hill
called The Sacrificial Poets, it started with,
well actually, it started with four young men who
were teenagers at that point, they're young
adults now, they're in their 20, and so
they started a spoken word poetry group.
And what that group does is, what they did at that
point when there are just together, they write their
own poetry and their poetry is about these
sorts of issues, identity issues, social justice
issues, racism, the different kinds of issues
that we've been talking about tonight.
Well now they've actually formed a nonprofit, a
501(c) and they receive money from different
organizations and they go into the various schools
in the North Carolina area, right now they're
primarily staying there, and work with teens to
help them articulate and create their own poetry.
They have -- once a month, they have an open mic
night at an independent bookstore in Chapel Hill.
And the last time they had an open mic night 154
people came to the open mic night.
And these kids perform, and older people perform
their poetry.
I start my young adult resources course with one
of the poems that's performed by one of the
young men.
It has to do with bullying.
And I had them come to my class this semester and
the poetry that they performed for us was just
incredibly powerful.
And I think that is a way to open up people to hear
it, so you hear someone performing it, it's so
much more powerful, I think, than if you just
read in the text.
It also shows teens that they can have a voice,
that they, themselves, can create this poetry and
perform this poetry, that they can give voice to
what concerns them, to what their issues are.
And so I think that, you're right, I think that
not just having it in print but having it in
multiple formats is a way of opening it up to a
broader segment of our society but also a way of
actually putting that power in the hands of the
teens themselves rather than them having to have
an author voice what it is that they're feeling, what
it is that they are experiencing.
Yes ma'am?
>>Unidentified Speaker: And you mentioned in 2011
only 8.8 percent of the young adults literature
showed there is a multicultural thing,
right?
>>Sandra Hughes-Hassell: Yes ma'am.
And I think I tried to avoid this problem, not
just because not too many publishers or the big
publisher, mainstream publisher try to publish
at this time, multicultural book.
I think the other thing we can put more effort is
encouraging more multicultural American to
write their own true story.
If they don't share their own positive story and we
only see the story shows, you know, the small mirror
reflect to the small society or small cultures
we stereotype.
So my question is, how can we encourage those good
writers with multicultural background try to publish
more, to write more their own story?
And we can have a chance to read?
>>Sandra Hughes-Hassell: So after Nancy Larrick did
her study that the, is it the Council for, the
Council for Children's Books?
What is it?
Somebody help me.
The Council...
>>Unidentified Speaker: Children's Book Council?
>>Sandra Hughes-Hassell: Children's Book Council
started sponsoring contests for authors of
color.
And so a lot of the well-known authors that we
know now got their start that way.
Walter Dean Myers started that way.
The Dylans started that way.
So a lot of the people who are publishing now got
their start in that -- because of those contests.
Well, a lot of organizations have
actually started having those sorts of contests
again.
So Lee and Low actually has, I don't know what
they call it...
>>Unidentified Speaker: New Authors
>>Sandra Hughes-Hassell: New Author -- New Voices.
And they're looking specifically -- I mean,
they're looking for new authors but their
specifically looking for authors from these
different underrepresented groups.
And so there are some other opportunities -
people are beginning to recognize that we need
this and in order to do this, we have to help
these folks get published because, again, that's
also part of the problem is that they are -- there
might be authors of popular color who want to
get published but they're not as likely to get
published as white authors.
One of the things that in the CCBC, the 2011, when
they published their statistics every year they
have a little paragraph or paper were Kathleen
Horning and her colleagues talk about what's
happening in multicultural literature.
And this year almost all of those books that were
published -- many of those books that were published
about African-American characters were written by
celebrities.
And they made the point that, you know, that's
great that they're publishing celebrities but
why is it that we have to -- we can only publish
these books if they're written by celebrities.
Why can't we published these books if they're
written by just a normal person.
And so I thought that was really interesting to see
how many of those titles this year -- I think Opera
has one out, Spike Lee has one out, and it was really
interesting to see how many of that small number
were being published by celebrities and those of
you who bought these books know that usually they're
not the best in the West.
Any other questions?
>>Paul Jaeger: Not to cut the conversation short but
we also have -- the warm food arrived and is ready
to go.
And we don't want it to be not warm.
So.
OK.
>>Sandra Hughes-Hassell: Thank you.
(APPLAUSE)
>>Paul Jaeger: I know I said food, but 30
seconds.
(Inaudible) Thank you for giving this lecture.
(APPLAUSE)
>>Paul Jaeger: OK.
So the food is just around the corner right by where
you came in to register.
Remember, tomorrow morning we are not in this
building.
At 8 a.m.
the breakfast starts in the Nyumburu Cultural
Center, which is just up that way.
It's on the map.
You can ask our volunteers if you're not familiar
with the campus but we'll have signs and people
outside from the parking garage tomorrow morning to
help you get there too.
So breakfast at 8:00, program begins at 9:00.
Now go eat.