Diverse Books and Unsung Heroes: A Brown Girl’s Search for Representation
When I was six years old, I was obsessed with a book called Striped Ice Cream. It actually belonged to my older sister and was the first chapter book I read on my own. The cover was yellow, with a smiling young girl in the foreground and a Neapolitan ice cream sundae in the background. The girl had dark brown skin and black hair, with clothes matching the vanilla, chocolate and strawberry hues of the sundae. I read it many times, though I no longer remember the plot.
I read constantly as a child. My early favorites were classics that my mother read to my siblings and I, like James and the Giant Peach and The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe. I loved to read about history, an interest that took off in third grade when I learned that the new Disney film Pocahontas (which I adored) was a fictionalized version of real events. That year, for the school-wide project fair, I eschewed the more popular science category in favor of social studies. My project, “The Truth About Pocahontas” — handwritten pages stuck to a posterboard, with a picture photocopied from a book at the library and a diorama of an Algonquian village made mostly by my mother — won third place.
The summer after third grade, I attended a local day camp and befriended a girl who, like me, preferred to sit on the sidelines and read while the rest of the kids played games of tag and kickball under the hot sun. Sarah was Jewish and told me about her family and their traditions. She lent me The Devil’s Arithmetic by Jane Yolen and I learned for the first time about Nazis and concentration camps. I would go on to read so many Holocaust stories that at one point my mother grew concerned. But this highlights some of the reasons reading is so powerful — you gain knowledge, see the world from another point of view, and (ideally) become more empathetic along the way.
In fifth grade, I had an incredible teacher named Mrs. Johnson who had the gift of being able to bring any subject to life in the classroom (even math, which I detested.) I remember listening, rapt, while she read chapters from The Watsons Go to Birmingham — 1963 aloud to the class, my peers begging for just one more page. I had read about slavery in the American Girls “Addy” series, but books like Watsons and Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry helped me understand what happened between Emancipation and the Civil Rights Movement. Mrs. Johnson, a white woman, was the only teacher I ever had who assigned a special project for Black History Month and held a classroom celebration.
Looking back, I realize that I gravitated toward stories of people of color from a young age. I sought representation subconsciously, noticing when a girl on a book cover was brown like me. I chose Storm as my favorite superhero way back when X-Men: the Animated Series still played on TV on Saturday mornings, and argued with my friends at recess that (Asian American) Trini was the best Power Ranger, even though all the girls at school preferred Pink Ranger Kimberly. When Mulan was released, it quickly became my favorite Disney film: not only was the character not your typical white princess, but she was a hero who didn’t need a guy to come save her. She was the feminist idol I didn’t know I needed.
Still, it was not until middle school when my mom and aunt started to intentionally read books by Latina authors — and pass them on to me — that I really felt seen in the literature I was reading. It’s wonderful and important to have books that give you a window into others’ experiences, but books that mirror ourselves and reflect our own realities are crucial — especially for members of marginalized groups, those of us left out of history books or cast solely as victims, whose lives have not been deemed valuable by society or the media. When Mom, Titi and I read In the Time Of the Butterflies by Julia Alvarez, I learned about the brutal dictatorship of Trujillo in the Dominican Republic and that there were real Latina heroes. Esmeralda Santiago’s memoir When I Was Puerto Rican stays with me because I remember looking at the author bio on the back of the book and thinking, “Wow, she’s Puerto Rican and she went to college and she’s a writer and a teacher — maybe I can do those things, too.”
This is why “representation matters” is more than just a popular catchphrase or hashtag. I still think about a moment over ten years ago, after I had delivered a college access presentation to middle schoolers, when a shy girl came up to tell me that she wanted to be a doctor — except, “there’s no Puerto Rican doctors.” She really believed that, because society and her own experiences had taught her it was true.
Black and brown people are still underrepresented in many fields due to systemic inequalities. But there’s no reason we should be so woefully absent even from fictional portrayals, both printed and onscreen. Last year, YA novelist Nic Stone wrote about the need to read books about Black people living, loving, going on adventures, saving the day — “the stuff white people did in books.” As Black Lives Matter protests erupted across the country, she wondered if things might be different had more white people grown up reading about Black people simply being human.
Today, there are more books available than ever before with BIPOC main characters. There are finally fantasy novels starring Black and Latinx kids, something I could not have imagined as a young Harry Potter fan. There’s increased diversity on network television, but I especially applaud streaming platforms for bringing such a varied array of characters and content into people’s homes. I find that many shows and films about Latinx people still rely on tired tropes of drug dealers and spicy mistresses, which makes me especially grateful for a series like Netflix’s Gentefied with its multi-layered Latinx characters who run businesses, make art, cook food, create family, and grapple with identity against the backdrop of a rapidly changing neighborhood. We deserve more of this complexity.
Seeing Black Panther in theaters in 2018 was a joyful, stunning and unparalleled experience. The film was a huge win for representation, and I believe it had a major impact on every child that watched it, especially dark skinned boys and girls. But I’m still here waiting for movies starring Latinx and Asian superheroes. What’s the hold up, Marvel?
