Striving for Balance in an English Curriculum

The struggle over curricular issues is never an easy one and it is usually one that people are passionate about. It is important work to be done and Independent Schools have a responsibility to try and strike a balance between the powerful and important literature that we were taught as students and the equally valuable literature of those writers not previously represented in secondary education. For me, as an "Independent School" teacher, moving beyond the Canon is an essential way to include students and faculty who are not automatically included in an "old boy" world that is the origin of Independent secondary schools and the American literature before 1900. Additionally, crucial learning for those young people who need exposure to these alternative voices, so that they might become more aware of this country and the world. In many public schools that are suburban in geography as well as socio-economic realities, the same may be true.

Generalities are unfair as no two communities or institutions can be the same. However, Independent schools are exclusive and so exclusionary; the cost of our tuitions necessitates that we cater to a constituency that is predominantly upper class. Suburban towns can also become somewhat homogeneous in population as housing prices determine the class of a high school and so a specific or narrow cultural vision can be created without intent. These realities should not be allowed to justify a lack of multicultural works or issues in a school's curriculum, i.e. because there is not a significant population of African-Americans, Asian-Americans, American Indians or Jews, these cultural literatures need not be represented. In fact such conditions demand an opposite approach. If we are to educate our students for the America of the future it is crucial to seek a balance between the various American cultures that are all running parallel to each other now. To ignore the literature, history, heroes, discoveries etc. of a culture different from our school's or town's diminishes our own individual knowledge and can contribute to an atmosphere that makes difference a tense, competitive and sometimes strident battle ground of bias, racism, anti-Semitism, homophobia, prejudice, classism etc.

Is this difficult? Yes, for a few reasons.

Teachers need to return to their own individual professional and ethnic beginnings so that differences can be acknowledged; once this is done, subject matter and methodology can be examined and discoveries made i.e. The identification of cultures as "other" or "Third World" reaffirms a perception that Western or white or Christian or male is the "normal" or, worse, the "better." Likewise, white faculty as well as students may deny or pass over their ethnicity because it has become so embedded in the overall culture of a particular school; it can become "the water that we swim in." They can feel "cultureless" but their culture is also continually celebrated; this dichotomy can contribute to racism.

Any study of the dominant culture's history or literature must include adequate examination of its acquisition of power and its benefit of privilege. This can become an uncomfortable exercise for both faculty and students because we may not feel privileged or benefited due to individual life circumstances. However, there are invisible advantages that come with being white or Christian or male or heterosexual; most of these advantages come from holding the power and/or being in the majority for over three hundred years (Peggy Macintosh's article on these invisible advantages is great reading. See the Diversity Primer).

Exploring the diversity within diversity means becoming aware of the different cultures that are lumped together under the heading: "Black" or "Asian" and examining the misperception that certain subjects ( Science, Mathematics) are neutral or "raceless." They are neither. But my focus is on an English curriculum for grades 7 through 12.

If we, as English teachers, examine ourselves first then the inherent and unintended blind spots in all our courses can be brought out and changes can be made. It can be non-threatening, challenging and energizing.

One place to start is with some anthologies that are either specific to a more multicultural curriculum or that are more inclusive in their selections. There is also a vast wealth of films, available through PBS, Facing History And Ourselves and other organizations. And there is Amazon.Com and other Internet sites to visit to browse for literature, specific to culture, ethnicity and race.

Some interesting anthologies and reference texts are:

New Worlds of Literature- Beaty & Hunter. Norton

Rereading America- Colombo, Cullen & Lisle. Bedford-St. Martin’s

African American Literature- Holt, Rinehart & Winston

Discovering Fiction- Guth & Rico. Blair Press

Africans in America- Johnson and Smith

The Promised Land- Lehmann

American Indian Literature:

In 1688 the revolt of the Pueblos to drive the Spanish back into Mexico was well known to the New England colonists and many discussions concerning democracy took place between colonists and Native Americans before 1776. After the revolution and especially during the nineteenth century the relationship of white and Native people became one of conflict and conquest, as white settlers, with the prodding protection of government treaties and soldiers, begin to pass through and then to claim tribal lands. This begins a century of changed agreements, smallpox infected blankets, forced marches to reservations, executions, starvation, Indian Bureau schools, tense assimilation, alcoholism, poverty etc.

The spiritual veneration of the land by Native Americans is largely ignored by the larger American culture and native people think that this country will never truly "belong" to the white culture until whites can identify with the land in a spiritual manner. An undeniable belief in the processes and offerings of nature provide the central aspects of plot and of theme for many American Indian works.

The literature of American Indian tribes begins as an Oral tradition, thousands of years before the first colony of Europeans is established. Yet while Homer is revered by Western culture, the stories, legends, histories and parables of American Indians are for the most part treated as primitive and unimportant by the European settlers who first encounter and then confront the peoples that are already here. This literature is ignored by whites of the nineteenth century even as individual storytellers in tribes are preserving it across the continent. Modern American Indian fiction draws from this emphasis on language as well as the limitless possibilities of the natural world. Talking animals, spirits, shape-shifting and ritual mysticism are very present in the works of many current writers. N. Scott Momaday's piece, “The Native Voice" is an important start. It includes the story of the Arrowmaker, which is a story of precise and exacting language in which the language itself becomes the agent of plot and character as well as the vehicle of the tale.

A partial list of works and authors to consider:

The Lone Ranger And Tonto Fistfight in Heaven, Reservation Blues, Indian Killer - Sherman Alexie

The Surrounded, Runner In The Sun- Darcy Mcnickle

Wolfsong - Owens

Fools Crow, The Indian Lawyer, Winter in The Blood- James Welch

Tracks, Love Medicine, The Beet Queen, Bingo Palace, Last Report on the Miracles at little No Horse- Louise Erdrich

The Broken Cord, A Yellow Raft In Blue Water- Michael Dorris

House Made of Dawn,- N. Scott Momaday

Ceremony- Leslie Marmon Silko

Lame Deer, Seeker of Visions-Lame Deer

Indian Boyhood- Eastman

The Wisdomkeepers- Wall & Arden

Native American Testimony-Nabokov

American Indian Myths and Legends- Erdoes & Ortiz

African-American Literature:

During slavery in America, 10 million Africans were brought to America as slaves; 10% of all the people of Africa. They were a stolen people; their ideas and customs were immediately made subordinate by white colonial America. An oral tradition, a history of family in names and a philosophy of the many over the one as opposed to the one over the many were all damaged if not destroyed by the institution of slavery. The legacy of slavery affects perception and treatment of African American students: the “expert” burden and the inconsistent expectations of "white" teachers who cannot know what the "Black Experience" feels like to black students. The teaching of this literature is further complicated by the prospect of teaching African-American literature in the classrooms of suburban public schools and private schools where the percentage of black students is oftentimes minuscule. A starting place is the realization that white students and faculty can enjoy the richness and variety of African-American literature without completely understanding the experiences that created a poem, play or novel.

The literature of African-Americans begins in the 1600's and is incredibly diverse and so can easily avoid reactionary assessments that it is somehow all the same. The list below is absent of innumerable titles of excellent poems from Phyllis Wheatley to Langston Hughes to Rita Dove and so illustrates the importance of choosing a balanced anthology.

A partial list of works and authors to consider:

Fences, Piano Lesson, Ma Rainey's Black Bottom, Joe Turner's Come and Gone, Seven Guitars, Jitney- Wilson, August

A Raisin In The Sun- Hansberry, Lorraine

for colored girls who have considered suicide/when the rainbow is enuf, Nappy Edges, The Love Space Demands - Ntozake Shange

Dutchman, Slave - Baraka, Amiri

Cane - Jean Toomer

Philadelphia Fire, A Glance Away, Fever, Hurry Home, The Lynchers, Brothers and Keepers, Fatheralong- John Edgar Wideman

A Gathering of Old Men, A Lesson Before Dying- Ernest J. Gaines,

Middle Passage, Oxherding Tale, Soulcatcher- Charles Johnson

Devil In A Blue Dress (and other easy Rawlins novels)- Walter Mosely

Betsey Brown, Lilane, Sassafrass, Cypress & Indigo- Ntozake Shange

Reckless Eyeballing- Reed, Ishmael

Click Song- Williams, John A.

Black Boy, Native Son- Richard Wright

Invisible Man, Juneteenth- Ellison Ralph

Go Tell It on The Mountain, Tell me How Long The Train's Been Gone, "Sonny's Blues"- James Baldwin

Beloved, Sula, The Bluest Eye, Jazz, Song of Solomon, Paradise - Toni Morrison

Bailey's Cafe, Linden Hills, The Women of Brewster Place, Mama Day- Gloria Naylor

The Color Purple, The Same River Twice, Meridian, Possessing the Secret of Joy, The Temple of my Familiar -Alice Walker

Kindred, Survivor, Parable of the Talents, Parable of the Sower, Clay's Ark, Wild Seed, Bloodchild and Other Stories - Octavia Butler

Those Bones are Not my Child - Toni Cade Bambara

Their Eyes Were Watching God- Zora Neale Hurston

I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings- Maya Angelou

The Souls of Black Folk - W.E.B. Dubois

Race Matters- Cornel West

Makes Me Wanna Holler- Nathan McCall

Ceramic Uncles & Celluloid Mammies- Patricia A. Turner

Colored People- Henry Louis Gates Jr.

Notes Of A Native Son, Nobody Knows My Name, The Fire Next Time, The Price of the Ticket - James Baldwin

Playing in the Dark - Toni Morrison

Hispanic Literature:

75% of linguistic minorities are Latino. They are the fastest growing minority in America. The United States is the second or third largest Spanish speaking country in the world. What is the legacy of America’s relationship with the Spanish speaking world and does this legacy affect schools? Being bilingual is seen as an advantage but the perception changes if the language is Spanish as opposed to German or French. Stereotype of Spanish speaking immigrants has changed the perception and purpose of E.S.L. programs from enrichment classes to remedial classes. Latino students are often seen as problems and not as students who add a new cultural dimension to the class or school.

Hispanic literature is diverse. The Chicano experience is completely different from the Puerto-Rican experience or the Cubano experience and so differs in political, racial, economic and geographical realities facing people who are often lumped together.

Chicano literature is an oral tradition originating well before the "Gringos" arrive in the 1600’s but this literature became noticed in fifties and sixties. Chicano culture of New Mexico, Texas and California is rural, western and land based even as it applies to observations of city life. The importance of nature exists as a spiritual and magical presence not merely real estate. The Ilano (prairie) in Rudolfo Anaya’s Bless Me Ultima or "Atazlan", the mythical Chicano homeland that exists literally and figuratively are sacred and coveted; they are spiritual and yet very real, not unlike the great tree of peace for Iroquois and other tribes. This connects Chicano literature more with American Indian literature than the works of other "Hispanic" writers. The attempts by white European settlers to "claim" the land through farming and barbed wire fences, timber cutting and deeds are seen as artificial and degrading practices against nature and indigenous peoples. The preservation of food and language are also essential pieces of cultural life.

The literature of Puerto Ricans living in America is different from Chicano literature in several interesting ways. First, it is usually a depiction of an urban experience; Puerto Ricans have been an important presence in New York since the 1920's. Emphasis is more concerned with people's dealings with each other than on human relationships to nature.

Chicanos were invaded by American society while Puerto Ricans immigrated to East coast cities. There can also be a division between those who left Puerto Rico and those who stayed behind; this is different from Chicanos who have essentially been in the southwest for many thousands of years. Whereas the influence upon Chicano culture and literature is more American Indian, Puerto Rican literature and vales are impacted by Black presence that has existed with theirs primarily in urban areas.

Some shared elements of Hispanic literature: Family, Religion and Spanish heritage. There is the creation of identity through family and also through the experience of being exiles that can be nostalgia for roots by the uprooted. So family dynamics, either the preservation or reunification of the family unit or the disintegration of the family often provides the tragedy or joy that concludes a work.

This brief discussion does not include the Cuban-American influence upon American culture and Hispanic literature; nor does it discuss the incredibly rich and imaginative literature of South American writers like Isabel Allende who writes in both English and Spanish or Gabriel Garcia Marquez or Carlos Fuentes. For this list I have tried to stay focused on writers who commented upon a United States experience.

A partial list of works and authors to consider:

Iguana Dreams- Collection of writing by Chicanos and Latinos

Growing Up Latino, Memoirs and Stories -Augenbram & Stavans

Bless Me Ultima, Albuquerque, Tortuga, Heart of Atazlan- Rudolfo Anaya

Nilda- Nicholasa Mohr

The House On Mango Street, Loose Women: Poems, Woman Hollering Creek- Sandra Cisneros

Christopher Unborn, The Death of Artemio Cruz, The Old Gringo,

BurntWater, Myself With Others ( and more)- Carlos Fuentes

The House of the Spirits, Of Love and Shadows, The Infinite Plan, Eva Luna, Daughter of Fortune (and more) - Isabel Allende

One Hundred Years of Solitude, In Evil Hour, Autumn of the Patriarch, Leaf Storm, No One Writes to the Colonel - Gabriel Garcia Marchez

La Maravilla - Alfredo Vea JR.

Down These Mean Streets, Savior, Savior, Hold my Hand, Stories from El Barrio, Seven Long Times– Piri Thomas

Asian Literature:

Asian Americans grew as a population in New England by over 2000% during the last five years. For them, there is the stereotype of being “mysterious” and “inscrutable” to the "American" community. Immense and unappreciated diversity exists within the Asian population. Besides usual pressures, they are burdened with being “The Model Minority,” an appellation that begun in a series of articles in 1966 when African Americans were seen as “riotous.” This "Model Minority" identity includes praise for work ethic and ability in “hard” subjects like Math and Science. Yet, perceptions of Asian Americans are often associated with wars of the twentieth century and events within these conflicts I.e. Pearl Harbor, Viet Nam, Hiroshima etc. Even our business with the Asian countries is frequently described as a “Trade War.” Added to this will be the possibility of disappointment with Asians by an undiscriminating white population that will lump all Asians together as responsible for Asian Gang activity or competition in business despite huge difference in the cultures, languages and beliefs of Asia. Despite this, individual Asian communities are clearly more accepting of different Asian cultures as there is a shared experience within the predominantly white American society.

Asian literature dealing with Asian traditional values and/or American culture pay attention to the differences between generations and how these differences are resolved if and when they can be. The family or the disintegration of the family is an important issue in this literature as parents can act to protect children from the new American culture in a way that is poignant and simultaneously destructive. The parents try to keep alive a world that is gone temporally and geographically while the children are attracted to the American society that provides benefits and traps that go with new found freedoms, prospects and dangers. The second generation can be disinterested or even disrespectful of the past yet unable to be completely accepted by white neighbors, employers, and lovers. An American Dream entangled in the realities of Chinatown. Yet Asian families both in literature and life can seem more committed to family than other racial groups in American culture; empathy leads to a desire to preserve family despite conflicts within it. There is also a movement by the third generation to return to some of the traditions left out by those eager to assimilate.

The desire to succeed in America is another important theme in Asian literature. This success requires an assimilation that can be traumatic in the rejection of racial and cultural identity and family traditions. The father figure can at times be tyrannical (chauvinistic, brusque, distant) and at others powerless (unable to prosper, low in stature) in this new American world. The father character can therefore range from cold patriarch to loving buffoon in the portrayal of the author.

In 1882, Chinese influx to labor in the mines and on the railroads of American frontier has been prevalent for decades and a law is passed to limit the number of Chinese males that can come to America. So begins a long history of Asian exclusion and bitterness when American Jobs for white citizens are perceived to be at stake. Employers respond by actively recruiting Japanese and Korean workers since Chinese labor force is severely reduced. Japanese become the most prominent Asian group because of this up until the Second World War.

In the 1900's, Chinatowns are created as cities within cities begin to thrive. Here Asian immigrants can live unencumbered by American society's ignorance and prejudice. The preservation of cultures, laws, languages and identities is possible within these micro-cities. In cities like New York, Boston and San Francisco "Chinatowns" become the centers of Asian life.

Often the spirits of the past can bridge Chinese culture with the American culture that characters can feel trapped and/or alienated in. This transcending of time in a traditional or Western sense can preserve connection to the former life and country of a character. I would start with Woman Warrior and then go from there.

A partial list of works and authors to consider:

Chickencoop Chinaman, Donald Duk, The Year of The Dragon- Frank Chin

M. Butterfly- David Huang

The Joy Luck Club, The Kitchen God's Wife, - Amy Tan

China Boy, Honor And Duty- Gus Lee

The Woman Warrior, China Men, Tripmaster Monkey- Maxine Hong Kingston

Obasan- Joy Kogawa

Clay Walls- Kim Ronyoung (Korean)

The Middleman and other stories, Jasmine- Bharti Mukerjee (Indian)

Bone- Fay Ng

All I Asking for is My Body- Milton Murayama (Japanese)

No-No Boy- James Okada (Japanese)

Nisei Daughter- Monica Sone

Margins and Mainstreams- Gary Okihiro

Typical American, Whose Irish- Gish Jen

Seventeen Syllables, and other stories- Hisaye Yamamoto (Japanese)

China and the Chinese Overseas-Wang Gungwu

Turning Japanese- David Mura

The Japanese American Experience- David O’Brien and Stephen Fugita

Caribbean Literature:

The voices of Africa and South America's indigenous people, the experiences of the Middle Passage, the impact of Columbus and the other conquistadors, the races of those who are Black, Indian, Cuban, Portuguese, the languages of English, Spanish, French. All this and more merge and blend into the stories and poetry of Caribbean writers, sometimes connected in spirit as well as language to others in the American continents to their North and West. Cuba, Haiti, The Dominican republic, Puerto Rico, Jamaica – all are the places and settings of various works of literature that are included in this region and yet all are different in languages, cultures and issues.

The Caribbean writers of the twentieth century call upon their ancestors and their stories that have survived the effects of Colonialism, Slavery, and displacement

A partial list of works and authors to consider:

Omeros, The Gulf, Another Life, Sea Grapes, The Bounty (poetry)

Dream on Monkey Mountain, The Joker of Selville, OBabylon,Rembrance and Pantomime (drama) - Derek Walcott

Krik Krak, Breath, Eyes and Memory, The Farming of Bones

- Edwidge Danicat

Growing Up Puerto Rican, Almost a Woman, Las Christmas: favorite Latino Authors share their Holiday Memories– Esmeralda Santiago

How The Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents, In the Time of the Butterflies, !Yo!, In The Name of Salome -Julia Alvarez

Dreaming in Cuban - Christina Garcia

Texaco – Patrick Chamoiseau

The House on the Lagoon – Rosario Ferre

A Tempest – Aime Cesaire

Yocandra in the Paradise of Nada: A Novel of Cuba – Zoe Valdes

Drown – Junot Diaz

They Forged the Signature of God – Viriato Sencin

In The Palm of Darkness, The Messenger – Mayra Montero

Old Rosa: A Novel in Two Stories – Reinaldo Arenas

Annie John, A Small Place, The Autobiography of my Mother, Lucy,

My Garden – Jamaica Kincaid

Alden Mauck -1995 and continuing!

alden_mauck@nobles.edu