For my project, I want to focus on Latino/Latina children, and how they assimilate into a new culture (usually the American one), yet maintain their own language and culture. After searching for book reviews that pertained to my topic, I decided to go about it in two different ways.
First, I did a general search on Latina literature and found a few references to books within the article. This was helpful and led me in a direction to weed out a few books, and research some that I would potentially want to have in my classroom. My second tactic was to just go to the the library and check out a ton of books that seemed to be legitimate choices for not only my topic, but my classroom.
Now that I've set myself up with all of this information, I can't wait to dig into all of this material to offer up some suggestions for you on a topic that is rapidly growing in classrooms across America.
Sunday, November 30, 2008
Tuesday, November 11, 2008
Asian Pacific Americans: More Than 50 Different Groups!
In Sandra S. Yamate's article, she brings up the re-occurring issue Asian Pacific Americans must face quite often:
"Asian Pacific Americans are a diverse group. They are comprised of over fifty different ethnic groups who share no common history, language, religion, or culture. Some belong to families who have lived in the United States for five generations, no longer speaking any other language but English..."(Yamate, 96).
Quite honestly, while I was aware that there were more than two groups of Asians beyond Chinese and Japanese, I had no idea that there were over fifty ethnic groups. I can't imagine how frustrating it would if I was an American living in Burma and the Burmese thought I was German or Italian.
In Linda Park's Project Mulberry, Julia is put in this awkward position of being called Chinese:
“Well I reckon your momma will be able to get some good use out of them. Don’t Chinese people use a lot of peppers in cooking?” (139).
Julia was embarrassed and offended by this comment because she was, in fact, Korean. While it is clearly a sensitive subject for Pacific Asian Americans to be placed in the inappropriate ethnic group, children's stories and other sources that can inform those that sometimes make false and naive assumptions can be properly educated.
"Asian Pacific Americans are a diverse group. They are comprised of over fifty different ethnic groups who share no common history, language, religion, or culture. Some belong to families who have lived in the United States for five generations, no longer speaking any other language but English..."(Yamate, 96).
Quite honestly, while I was aware that there were more than two groups of Asians beyond Chinese and Japanese, I had no idea that there were over fifty ethnic groups. I can't imagine how frustrating it would if I was an American living in Burma and the Burmese thought I was German or Italian.
In Linda Park's Project Mulberry, Julia is put in this awkward position of being called Chinese:
“Well I reckon your momma will be able to get some good use out of them. Don’t Chinese people use a lot of peppers in cooking?” (139).
Julia was embarrassed and offended by this comment because she was, in fact, Korean. While it is clearly a sensitive subject for Pacific Asian Americans to be placed in the inappropriate ethnic group, children's stories and other sources that can inform those that sometimes make false and naive assumptions can be properly educated.
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