The Space Between Us by Thrity Umrigar

Bhima marvels at the paradox: A solitary man, an exile, a man without a country or a family, had still succeeded in creating dreamworlds for hundreds of children, had entered the homes of strangers with his creations of color and fantasy and magic.  A man who would never again touch or kiss the sweet faces of his own children brought smiles to the faces of other people’s children. Like a musician, the Pathan had learned to make a song out of his loneliness. Like a magician, he had learned how to use sheer air to contort limp pieces of rubber into objects of happiness. Empty-handed, he had built a world.

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Girl in Translation by Jean Kwok (2010)

This book contains a novel that reads like a memoir. In the midst of reading the book I forgot I was reading a novel.  Kwok’s story centers on Kimberly Chang’s youth as a Chinese immigrant child (middle-school age) in New York with a single mother whose only other relatives are a resentful aunt and uncle who help only so much.  The worlds that Kim navigates differ in extensive ways: well-resourced schools where she faces class-based and race-based discrimination compared to a bug-infested, heatless home and a garment sweatshop as a workplace.  In a sense, Kimberly is the translator of all these worlds as well as the guardian of keeping those worlds apart. She has to translate those worlds and the words within them for herself, as well as conducting translation in the regular sense of language and life for her mother, for her friends, and for the reader (there are aphorisms that are used and explained to the reader almost as if the reader is being directly addressed and when Kimberly is still learning English particular words are written as they are understood rather than what the speaker intended—the heritage or "native" English speaker’s accent is an obstacle rather than the other way around). The book introduces an expanded sense of translation without essentializing or simplifying with a single definition of the act as oppressive for the child.  Instead, translation is empowering. This is a concept not really understood in many everyday conversations about child translation. 

The book Translating Childhoods by Marjorie Faulstich Orellana (2009) academically expands on this topic of child translation. Orellana does not dismiss the challenges and hardship of translation, but she also shows how it can be beneficial to the child.  After explaining negative circumstances for children who translate for their family and friends, she wrote,

In other situations, relationships, and forms of translation activities, however, children felt very good: smart, capable, and grown up, as well as just happy to help others. Too often children (and others) are not given opportunities to feel needed, useful, and appreciated. Indeed, the world might be a better place if all people had opportunities to be needed and valued by others. Given that the children of immigrants are going to translate for their families whether or not we condone it, we would do well to provide scaffolds for their work, and to value and validate their skills” (Orellana, 2009, p. 120) 

Translating Childhoods would make a good duet read with Girl in Translation.

Another resource to pair with this novel would be the investigative journalism and comics/sequential art on sweatshops from a 1994 piece in The New Yorker.  In terms of the novel, the written description of the sweatshop and how the under-age workers are forced to hide quietly and contend with a big roach in dark, dingy,  bathroom when the inspectors visit resonate with the painful imagery of this journalism piece (also mentioning children).  You can access this piece online at this address: 

http://archives.newyorker.com/default.aspx?iid=18748&startpage=page0000008#folio=228

In conclusion, the novel has many potential ways it could be used as a textbook for the college classroom in several content areas, such as immigration, education, or family studies. The multiple levels of translation that occur may be one focus for a classroom to explore.  Although written in English, the uses of regionally Chinese-influenced ideas are apparent.  We also need more work like this on childhoods from various perspectives both through fictional works and mediated through memoir and research.

 References

Coe, S. (1994, November 7). Sweatshops, 1994. Retrieved from http://archives.newyorker.com/default.aspx?iid=18748&startpage=page0000008#folio=228

Kwok, J. (2010). Girl in translation: A novel. NY: Riverhead Books.

Orellana, M F. (2009). Translating childhoods: Immigrant youth, language, and culture. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University  Press.

Parade Float and Self-Visibility/Invisibility

These are interesting articles on representatives of the Oneida Nation and their Macy's Thanksgiving  Parade float. Much different than the other pieces in the parade (such as having animals dressed in feathers).

http://indiancountrytodaymedianetwork.com/2011/11/24/oneida-indian-nations-the-true-spirit-of-thanksgiving-marks-its-fourth-year-in-macys-day-parade-64127

http://indiancountrytodaymedianetwork.com/2011/11/23/moving-history-the-components-of-the-oneida-indian-nations-macys-thanksgiving-day-parade-float-64512

Lack of public and political conversation on racial inequities in the recession

I noticed on September 4, 2011 this op-ed piece made it to 8th on the list of most e-mailed articles from The New York Times. I usually hesitate to point out op-ed pieces to students as they are "opinion" pieces, but I did not with this article.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/03/opinion/on-race-the-silence-is-bipartisan.html?src=recg

What we do have going on is some nod to racial inequalities "of the past." I went to see the movie The Help (and not when it was first released), and it was a packed theater.  The Association of Black Women Historians provides a useful critique of this film:

http://www.abwh.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=2:open-statement-the-help

The Sweetness of Tears by Nafisa Haji

Haji, N. (2011). The sweetness of tears: A novel. NY:  William Morrow.

                This is the book if you want to have  a text that you can read over several days.  This story is full of emotion as it explores the beauty and importance of language and gender imbalances of power. The story,  however, does wrap up very optimistically in the end (maybe too much so). The book draws the reader into current events such as tactics in the war on terror, as well as the conflicts in Iraq, and provides in-depth detail about Shia and Sunni Islam and Christianity. The author explores three generations of lives and connections between those lives linked to Pakistan and the United States. You have to read some way into the book to find the start of those connections, as the book begins with the influence on Christianity as shaping some of the main characters.  I am noticing more and more books that explore the connections between different faith communities, whether novel or memoir. I also found myself jotting down pieces or marking pieces of Haji’s writing that personally resonated or that alluded to ideas that I teach about.  An example that caught my attention was when a father and daughter re-tell a  version of a fable to include  gender equity. That part had a thoughtful explanation:  “People tell stories. And people listen to them. The way a story is told says something about the one who tells it. And the way it is understood, the lesson drawn from it, tells something about the one who listens.” (Haji, 2011, p. 164).