NJSue: Joan Didion’s Where I Was From seemed to me an interesting exploration of the pioneer story she was taught as a child. What did you think about it? Does she seem to you to deal with any of issues you raise in post #98?
If you have time and it’s not too off topic, I would appreciate your insight.
Come on. We all know that if you’re really talented and beloved it doesn’t matter how terrible a person you/your parents and/or your associates might’ve been through today’s lens… Talented people who mean something to you personally get by on a different set of rules than ordinary folk. You have to give them a pass now and then. Right? Right?? ok carry on…
I’m confused as to who you think is talented but apparently flawless enough to satisfy contemporary criteria? Sorry to say, there are no saints among us( and even the saints have serious flaws). Can we think of any leader or talented person who didn’t have character deficits.? Maybe we just shouldn’t read, that will solve the problem.
I named my son after a Star wars character. But y’all know JarJar Banks was Jamaican, and who do you think the the (horrible, greedy, large-nosed) huts, the money lenders and pawn brokers, traders, slave-dealers, were supposed to be, exactly?
I don’t hear anyone calling for the head of George Lukas.
Sorry @greenbutton , but you lost me at “First People’s child”. I can’t keep up with the newspeak-y names of things anymore. If we are going to dwell on who was a victim of whom and when, shouldn’t we preserve the first-hand accounts of the people who lived at that time? Maybe some First People’s College Student will use LIW as sources material for a thesis.
I’ve seen no evidence at all that Laura Ingalls Wilder was “a terrible person.”
I guess AmyMath must then understand that future generations may see her as “a terrible person” also.
If one thinks that Laura Ingalls Wilder is a terrible person, then social mores and standards must have changed a great deal since the 1980s (the heyday of the TV series based on her books). Were people really that benighted, bigoted, and ignorant not that long ago? I don’t think so but then again I was a young adult in the 1980s and am old now.
I do think that revolutions have a tendency to eat themselves and all the cultural Robespierres have a tendency to end up hoist on their own petard.
But did the television series include all of the less-nice parts?
If it did not, then that would be like how people singing the national anthem only sing the first verse, because a lot of people would not consider the third verse to be very nice.
Agreed, NJ Sue. The Laura character was strong, smart and brave, and didn’t follow stereotyped gender norms. I admired her spunk and spirit in the books
The difficulty I always have in these discussions is that while, as is the case here, I often find myself on the side of those objecting to these kinds of names changes, in principle I do think that there are instances where names should be changed and statues should come down. I even think that there are cases when a book or film might be so out of whack with current values that it wouldn’t be appropriate entertainment for modern children - although an example isn’t coming to mind (I think even something like Song of the South is actually a more complicated case than it first appears). If something was named to honor a Confederate politician or general FOR his role in the confederacy, that should probably be changed. If there’s a Bill Cosby or Harvey Weinstein award out there, those should also be changed. In terms of entertainment, I don’t want kids reading a book that ends in a triumphant massacre of Native Americans, or kiddie version of Gone with the Wind, in which a notion of the Confederacy as a glorious cause and Reconstruction as a threat to a southern way of life is central.
But I’m very concerned at how widely the definition of “unacceptable” is being expanded. The Little House series is not primarily concerned with providing a portrait of the conflict between Native Americans and white settlers; the threat of attack from NA (which was not baseless) is one threat among many, and not by any means the most prominent theme of the books. Ma displays racism that is obviously rooted in fear and is not, as a whole, left entirely unchallenged by the narrative, though certainly Wilder is less troubled by her position, or anxious to explicitly disown it, than a modern writer would or should be. Laura herself is curious about the Indians. Some depictions or descriptions of them and other minorities rely on stereotypical notions or attitudes that would then have be uncontroversial.
That amounts, for a me, to a book that, like many historical narratives, needs careful contextualization. But if the Little House books are among those that should no longer be read or taught - and I understand the ALA was carefully not saying that, but some posters on this thread have, and it isn’t a crazy leap to make – we’re, to me, entering into a territory in which almost any narrative written by a white person before a certain time period that has any mention or depiction of race and minorities could find itself on the chopping block. And we’re setting a precedent for even works that we currently see as unproblematic to find themselves purged in a few years or a generation when standards change further and, inevitably, our own attitudes are seen as blinkered and harmful.
Changing the name of the award is, if anything, even less defensible to me than making a decision not to teach the book, even if it has far less of a practical impact. No one seems to know what the adult LIW’s views on Native Americans or other minorities were. Presumably, they were less progressive than those of the average person living today, but that would be true of almost every single person from her era, including people who would then have been considered far to the left. The scenes and attitudes she is representing in her books are period typical. There is room for debate about how critical the text itself is of those attitudes. But there is something deeply troubling to me about deciding that a person is unworthy of honor as a beloved children’s novelist, not only because she MAY have shared in some of the prejudices of her age, but because she wasn’t sufficiently and ahistorically racially sensitive enough to avoid even the impression that her character’s views were anything less than horrifying and repugnant to her.
Apply that standard to other historical figures, and I’m really not sure who would be safe. Even most of the people on the “right” side of history would have had (and in many cases expressed, if you do enough digging) views that would be considered offensive and wrongheaded by the average person today, let alone by those on the vanguard of social justice movements.
Is everyone really this obtuse? No one cares if you (or anyone) reads these books. But many of you care deeply that someone would maybe disagree with an opinion about a person you hold dear – and that in someone else’s OPINION, people, she is perhaps (gasp) not that great (a writer, a person, a gymnast – whatever) and perhaps a private award no longer merits her name.
I was another that adored the books. When S was 7 and Ds toddlers we read the entire series aloud. The girls don’t remember and never had interest in the books later but S read The Long Winter yearly for the rest of his childhood.
Reading the books myself as an older child, maybe 6th grade, I clearly remember the depictions of Indians and LIWs fascination, as well as my abhorrence of her mother’s fear and prejudice. Growing up with native Americans as neighbors and a reservation a mile distant, I clearly knew the prejudices were unfair as my family was marching for civil rights at the time and we engaged with people of all backgrounds at home.Though by that age I knew a bit of the history of the west and that there were families killed while the plains were being settled. Learning the extent of the genocide came later…History is complicated and one mothers’ fear for her family is a realistic depiction of one piece of that time period. Hopefully anyone fascinated by these stories would also be reading other books set in the same time period.
As with any historical account there are many issues brought up in the book which are not congruent with current values. Laura’s spunk, admired now, was a matter of shame seen through the lens of that time as she wanted to be like the more saintly Mary, who was held up as the more demure and desirable example. I once read an essay about a woman who had silenced herself due to internalizing the values held in the series, and had to later learn to speak up more authoritatively.
We read these books to give context to and contrast with our lives now. Life seems very flat indeed if we fear and censure those stories.
I don’t care if people think LIW is a good writer. I do care if people broaden the definition of “not a good person” or “not worthy of honor” to, essentially “any person living before our present historical moment who showed any indication of sharing values that we now see as wrongheaded, or being insufficiently condemnatory of people who did.”
Many of us have our heritage portrayed in in negative stereotypes. i don’t ever remember internalizing those stereotypes. How can we read history if all of that is wiped away?
I agree with apprenticeprof: in my mind there is a enormous difference between an author that writes a book which reflects the prejudices of the time period and one who actively participated or personally expressed those views.
How should she have written about this? How would a young girl have reacted, especially at a time when children were expected to be seen and not heard? Should she have left out any discussion of Indians, even though that would not have reflected the reality of her life at that time?
If we want to talk about the change in social mores and standards since the 80’s (can we include the 70’s, a golden age of American Television?) then what to make of the funny, hapless, and ultimately benign Nazis of Hogan’s Heroes, or the black stereotypes displayed on shows like Sanford and Son and What’s Happenin?
I don’t watch much TV now, but I have flipped around and what I see is that white males are generally clueless, bumbling, and ineffectual, their wives are much smarter, and the real brains behind then operation, employed or not. All blacks are middle or professional class, even if they don traditional peices African clothing once in awhile.Asians are allowed to appear as immigrants with funny accents and all, but I haven’t seen (maybe it exists but I don’t know if it) any representation of Mexicans (other than the very old George Lopez show, or Eva Longoria in desperate housewives…or other hispanic characters that are in a more typical socioeconomic situation (Gloria from Modern Family doesn’t count).
Drama is sort of the opposite, where ALL the stereotypes come
out to play - white men are either the good guy who saves the day, or the evil mastermind, and usually, both. Even better if the evil white guy is really, really white, like with light grey or watery blue eyes, and a vaguely germanic accent. Blacks represent both generic danger and make a handy side-kick. Women? Aside from a token secretary of state or fantasy president, they are mostly there to be saved, Asians are either triad or comic relief. Hispanics, again, where are they? Gang members maybe.
Our current “moment” is so far from being the perfect blooming of respect for all people in popular culture, it makes me wonder how much children’s literature from today will pass muster? It may never be deemed “unacceptable “ , but maybe it will be seen for what it is - deliberately pc in our current cultural moment, and therefore lacking enduring appeal.
One example -
Sesame street. My son learned to read at 17 months, mostly because I plopped him in front of Sesame street from 6-7 am, while I drank coffee and tried to keep my chin off the table. He had an overweight cookie monster stuffing his face with cookies, and eating the styrofoam letters. By the time my now-10 yr old came along, cookie monster was no longer allowed to indulge himself, instead eating vegetables (!) and half the show was the social-emotional “learning” of Elmo’s world. They didn’t have enough female characters, so they added Abbey, who flew around in a tutu and glittery wings, and spoke in a girly, baby-voice which grated on my every nerve. They added an autistic character recently, I have heard, which you’d think I would welcome, with an Aspie kid, but no, my kid did just fine with the old, academic version of sesame street. The self-consciously inclusive version holds very little appeal to any of my kids - my baby girl, who could have used the old sesame street, outgrew it around age 2. How many times can you sing “La-la-la-la,la-la-la-la, Elmo’s world?”
I think I digressed, LOL.
Who is wiping away ugly aspects of history or censoring your books? It is important to remember bad things were common and otherwise good guys were sometimes also racists (Ma) through the lens of today. Is it ok to not honor it, though? And can it just be ok that the public can’t dictate what a private award is named?
And can it also be ok that Laura Ingalls Wilder is not everyone’s cup of tea?
Getting back to the topic at hand, the name of the award - I would agree with @AmyMath , and say that the organization in question can call their award whatever they want.
I’d also suggest that now the Laura Ingalls Wilder Award in youth literature is available for another organization to adopt. So if you have the money or the backing, and you are a big fan - now’s your chance.
Usually you’re careful about what you say, @apprenticeprof, so I’d like to see cites of the people in this thread who have said that the Little House books should no longer be read. “Or taught”? Taught? These are children’s books, that little girls read or have read to them. They are not academic textbooks.
There was, somewhere up the thread, the suggestion that these were “not appropriate to be read in schools”. I don’t know that they ever ARE, but it is conceivable, simply because they ARE a good narrative of pioneer life.
There are always lists of books for summer reading. My district leans heavily on Holocaust literature. My district completely ignores the fact that 30% of the kids are immigrants from former soviet countries, China, or India. There is always something civil -rights or slavery related, although our district has about 8 black families; there has never been a single reading related to Stalin and the Gulags, China, or India. Oh, wait, they read the Kite Runner, and there are also a lot of muslim students, so that is one. But you get my point - politically-correct reading lists seek to educate children in select topics of past injustice, but sometimes ignore the relevance to intended audience. It seems like the current topics are
selected to remind “us” of “our” sins, but the recent immigrants I know don’t feel particularly responsible for slavery, and the Chinese connection to the Holocaust is a bit of a mystery…especially while we ignore many other genocides around the world that these children may actually have a personal connection to. Of course Holocaust reading is important - but how about Between Shades of Grey, about Stalin’s programs in Lithuania, or something about Nanjjng, or Cambodia,
or a little Salman Rushdie? Every change of President, the Armenian Americans ask for recognition of their genocide. I wonder if anyone has thought to add it to any lists? The history of the world is a history of grievance and injustice and encroachment. We are just picking which histories get to be told right now.
I mean, is there a Central American LIW out there right now, a “dreamer”, penning her family’s story of setting out for a new place in search of opportunity in a new land? And maybe her fear of the “locals” , some of whom may be hostile to her family? Would we fault her parents if they were fearful for their children?
Think about that.
My first exposure to the Little House books came at my public school. We read Little House in the Big Woods in 3rd grade. It was “taught” not in the sense that a textbook is, but in the sense that any fiction novel would be.