Ten authors have released books for Asian American middle grade and young adult readers in honor of this year’s Asian Pacific American Heritage Month.
The writers include Grace Lin (Year of the Rat), Janet Wong (Minn and Jake’s Almost Terrible Summer), Lisa Yee (Good Luck, Ivy), Cherry Cheva (She’s So Money), Justina Chen Headley (Girl Overboard), Mitali Perkins (First Daughter: White House Rules), An Na (The Fold), Joyce Lee Wong (Seeing Emily), Paula Yoo (Good Enough) and David Yoo (Stop Me If You’ve Heard This One Before).
Young Asian American readers look to books as a sort of guide on how to navigate the particular trials and tribulations unique to being Asian Pacific American. But some books require more of a mental leap to identify. Just a generation ago, readers relied on the power of imagination to relate to characters in the Sweet Valley High or The Hardy Boys series.
Well-known author, writer and illustrator Lin articulated this vacuum of Asian Pacific American young adult literature: “In my life, moments of insecurity and isolation could have been magically erased simply by having a book transform into a friend that shared what I saw and what I am.”
This is changing. Less than 15 years ago, only one percent of children’s books featured Asian American authors. Last year, the number of books doubled, and Asian American authors began to win heavy-hitting honors such as Newbery Awards, Caldecott Prizes and even National Book Awards.
These books reflect the many cultures and challenges of growing up Asian Pacific American today. Protagonists must see their way through adjusting to a new state, pursuing a dream of becoming a female snowboarder, falling in love with the wrong guy, deciding if plastic surgery is the right choice, and breaking away from family expectations. They struggle with the particulars of prejudice and finding self-worth and acceptance as a Chinese American, an Indian American, and even a “quarpa” or one-quarter Korean American. They stem from different economic backgrounds, from being a Thai daughter of a restaurant owner to having a Chinese billionaire for a father. One even struggles with understanding the consequences of cancer.
And while many of these books reflect the immediate here and now, it’s important to know where we have been and how we have contributed. In conjunction with the wildly popular American Girl historical line of dolls and books, Lisa Yee has written a novel introducing the first-ever Chinese American doll, Ivy Ling. Ivy must make her way through the turbulent 70s of San Francisco, a time for women’s rights, vinyl records and mood rings, and decide between attending her family reunion and an important gymnastic tournament.
The future seems limitless with the many possibilities of where we might turn up. Politics enthusiast and writer Mitali Perkins imagines an alternative present in which the First Daughter, Sparrow, is a sassy Indian American who helped her dad win the presidential election and blogs about first kid wannabes.
Wouldn’t it be wonderful to have Lin’s dream realized? In her hopeful and generously re-imagined world, she sees many different cultures exposed to the Asian bit of the American melting pot through books. The alternate ending would have an Asian kid asking, again, if she could play the ruby-slippered heroine trying to make her way back home. Only the new response would be “Sure, Dorothy could be Chinese.”
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