How Reading Can Lead to Cultural Understanding

Writer: Mark West

When the current global pandemic burst on the scene a little more than a year ago, I had no idea that it would lead to a sharp increase in crimes and prejudicial behavior directed at Asian Americans.  It is becoming increasingly clear, however, that the efforts to blame the pandemic on China is causing some people to view all Asians Americans as scapegoats for everything that has gone wrong in our country during the past year.

Another factor that is contributing to this problem is the breakdown in intercultural communication that is happening in part because of the pandemic.  Last year, for example, most of Charlotte’s international festivals were cancelled, including the Bon Odori Japanese Festival, the Charlotte Dragon Boat and Asian Festival, and the UNC Charlotte International Festival.  Such festivals were especially popular with children and young adults, and they helped young people develop an appreciation of cultures and people from other parts of the world.  One way that we can respond to the problem of increased cultural isolation is to use literature to help young people better understand the Asian American experience.  We might not be able to attend international festivals for the time being, but we can still read books.

As an English professor with a specialty in children’s and young adult literature, I have taken a particular interest in children’s literature that deals with the immigrant experience.  There are many children’s books about Asian American immigrants, but three of my favorites are Laurence Yep’s Dragonwings, An Na’s A Step from Heaven, and Thanhha Lai’s Inside Out & Back Again.  These are all award-winning books that shed light on the experience of Asian children who move to America where they grow up facing prejudice but also opportunity.

Laurence Yep’s Dragonwings came out in 1975, and the next year it was named a Newbery Honor Book.  The story focuses on Moon Shadow, a boy from the Kwangtung Province in China who moves to San Francisco in 1903 to join his father, who had moved to America some years earlier.    Moon Shadow is just eight years old when he takes the voyage across the Pacific Ocean to start his new life in the Land of the Golden Mountain, which is the name he initially uses for America.  Moon Shadow and his father share a passion for building and flying kites, and this passion leads them to follow the example of the Wright Brothers and attempt to build an airplane.  Yep writes about the prejudice that Chinese Americans faced during this time, but he also shows how Moon Shadow is still able to make friends with a girl who is not part of the Chinese American community.   Dragonwings provides an excellent introduction to the experience of Chinese Americans during the early years of the 20^th century.

An Na’s A Step from Heaven was published in 2001 and went on to win the Michael L. Printz Award for Excellence in Young Adult Literature.  The novel opens when four-year-old Young Ju and her parents board a plane in South Korea and fly to Southern California to start a new life in America.  Most of the novel focuses on Young Ju’s difficult teenage years.  Her father struggles to support his family financially and resents the fact that he is dependent on his daughter to help him communicate with governmental and school officials.  An Na’s novel shows how language barriers and cultural conflicts have an impact on family dynamics.  Young Ju’s father has a very difficult time making the transition from Korea to America, and he takes his frustration out on his family.  Young Fu, however, is more successful than her parents at forging an identity as an Asian American.

Thanhha Lai’s Inside Out & Back Again is a work of historical fiction written in the form of a verse novel.  Originally published in 2011, this debut novel went on to win the National Book Award for Young People’s Literature and was named a Newbery Honor Book.  The novel is based in part on the author’s childhood experience of fleeing Vietnam in 1975 and eventually settling with her family in Alabama, but the author fictionalizes some of the details related to her family.  Hà, the central character, is a ten-year-old girl who speaks no English when she first arrives in Alabama.  She is the only Asian girl in her class, and she faces bullying and prejudice on a daily basis, but she also experiences moments of kindness.  Their next-door neighbor, Mrs. Washington, supports Hà, and gradually Hà and the other members of this Vietnamese family make a place for themselves in Alabama.

These three novels are rooted in the Asian American immigrant experience.  The central characters in these stories come from three different countries with different languages and different cultures, but their experiences in America have much in common.  They all face prejudice and cultural conflict, but they all strive to make America their new home.  For readers who do not come from an Asian American background, these three novels provide cultural and historical insights.  By reading literary works about people whose lives are different from our own, perhaps we, too, can come to a better understanding of how others experience the world, and that is a meaningful step in the process of resisting prejudice.

About the Writer

Mark I. West is a Professor of English at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte, where he has taught courses in children’s and young adult literature since 1984. He currently holds the position of Bonnie Cone Professor in Civic Engagement. He has written or edited sixteen books, the most recent of which is Shapers of American Childhood: Essays on Visionaries from L. Frank Baum to Dr. Spock to J. K. Rowling, which he co-edited with Kathy Merlock Jackson. His articles have appeared in various national publications, such as the New York Times Book Review, Publishers Weekly, Americana, and British.

Check out Mark’s blog, Storied Charlotte, HERE.