Education Race

Race and a Summer Reading List

By Rohini Devi

Spectrum staff

When leaders of Sewanaka Central High School District, in June 2020, voted to list mainly authors of color in the recommended list of books for students to read, it was the first time they had made such a leap. They were showing that they weren’t going to ignore the Black Lives Matter movement and the summer’s unrest.

Several students and parents have applauded that list, whose authors are of African, Asian, indigenous Central American, Persian and other non-white descent and whose topics include what it’s like to grow up immigrant or low-income or non-white in the United States.

Several of them also say it’s a first step in what should be a longer process of changing an academic curriculum and culture that has been pretty Eurocentric. They say the histories, sciences and points-of-view of people not of European descent should also be taught, fully and rightfully.

“There is more than just white history. I don’t think teachers do enough to push the envelope,” said Seema Sawh, a junior at Floral Park Memorial High School, one of five high schools in the district.

Of all those five schools, Floral Park is the one with what some say are the biggest racial and economic divisions. Of its student body, 52 percent are white, 16 percent are Latinx, 18 percent are East and South Asian ; 12 percent are African American. Among other concerns of students of color are these: the lack of teachers who also are of color; the racial tensions among students; and an academic curriculum that is too Eurocentric.

“Some teachers are more prone to discipline students that aren’t white,” said Marwa Alami, a Floral Park Memorial senior, whose parents are from Morocco. “There’s a bias there.”

Alami said she has witnessed black and Hispanic students being sent to the principal’s office more often than white students for the same disciplinary actions. She’s also noticed divisions in the student body.

In the lunchroom, she said, “White kids would sit with white kids, blacks with blacks, and Asians with Asians, and so on. There usually wasn’t any mixing.”

How far a new reading list will go to correct those kinds of problems is anyone’s guess. But Devin Demmers, a Floral Park English teacher, really likes what the reading list aims for. It is, he said, “a little baby step” in the direction of needed change.

“As educators, we need to push the issues,” Demmers said. “We need to invite and create situations where students have to have conversations [on topics] that are uncomfortable to learn.”

Demmers is planning classroom activities centered around the summer books. In one of them, students will imagine that they are the characters they’ve been reading about. He wants them to walk away from that role-playing with empathy for people different from themselves and to carry that experience throughout their lives.

“We can hope they can raise awareness,” said Ryan Gorman, whose son will be a Floral Park 8^th-grader this fall. “Discussions will be held in class and will hopefully be meaningful.”

Gorman, a member of the Mama’s for Justice Facebook group, said a diversity of parents also have been changed by this summer of high-profile police murders and the response from Black Lives Matter activists. She has protested herself and walked in marches. Mama’s for Justice also has a GoFundMe campaign to buy and donate books from a diversity of authors to the Floral Park library.

“It was a way for Moms to do something to help the situation,” Gorman said.

Her son was reading books from the list and, at the time that she spoke to The Spectrum, was digging into “The Crossover,” Kwame Alexander’s story about, black boy who loves basketball while tackling contemporary issues of black life. Her son found the book to be really cool and especially related to it, given his own passion for basketball. He will also be reading “Look Both Ways” a comedic piece by Jason Reynolds; and “Dear America: Young Reader’s Edition: The Story of an Undocumented Citizen,” Filipino Jose Antonio Vargas’ memoir about learning, as a teen, that he was not a legal resident of the United States, the country he calls home.

“It’s more important, now than ever, to have these books be the required reading,” said Edmund Conway, a Floral Park Memorial senior, who is white. “It really exposes and educates people. It comes across as more natural, instead of being forced to talk about it in a lesson.”

Conway is planning to read “The Hate You Give“, by Angie Thomas. It’s the story of a  black teenage girl living between her poor neighborhood and her preppy school, and discusses topics such as police brutality and racial disparity.

“That it is a start, because, at least, they’re pushing that door open,” added Seema Sawh, who was reading “The Other Wes Moore: One Name, Two Fates,” Moore’s autobiography and a story of two boys in Baltimore who had the same name, similar childhoods, and came from the same neighborhood, but went on to have two completely different futures.

She is grateful for the books Sewanaka school officials suggested that she read. She said she has high hopes that her district will become a more inclusive place.

“I’m probably going to graduate,” she said. “ … before it really becomes a place where there is inclusion for everybody. But change has to start somewhere.”