2019 Midterm2 (assignment) Index to Sample Midterm2 Answers Part 3. Research Report Starts

LITR 4340     American Immigrant Literature  Model Assignments

Jasmine Choate

Understanding the New Youth of America

          For my research, I decided to focus on learning more about Immigrant representation within Young Adult Literature and the impact it can have in the classroom. As a future 7-12^th ELA teacher I want to be aware of how I can make my classroom a comfortable and welcoming place where my students, immigrant or not, feel like they have a voice. For my research, I want to learn about how well, or how poorly, immigration is portrayed towards a younger audience. I’m also interested in how much immigrant representation has progressed throughout the years, considering the subject is not quite as taboo as is was 20-30 years ago.

          Reading about the immigrant experience is very eye opening, especially when it comes to the hardships they have to face, usually at a young age. In a journal article that I came across, Elizabeth Clifford analyzed 20 different young adult novels from the perspective of children here in the US in her article Immigrant Narratives: Power, Difference, and Representation in Young-Adult Novels with Immigrant Protagonists. By going through the different demographics and similar storylines, one thing that she discovered was an unfortunate truth that I, as a future teacher and American citizen, should take into consideration more often. “Most of the protagonists were in their early to mid-teenage years, although a few stories began earlier in the protagonists’ lives, sometimes when they were toddlers. Many protagonists had experiences and responsibilities that were much more adult than most American children would now experience.” (Clifford 4) The average childhood here in America is non-comparable to some of the tough obstacles that child immigrants have to face. Learning through their perspectives, can affect how young people think and understand immigration. This shows the true power that these young adult narratives can have on the growing minds of their targeted audience.

          Representation in young adult literature is incredibly important, especially for teenagers of any culture. It gives them something to relate to and view as a voice for their culture, their home, and even their identity. They are in the stage of their youth, where being or feeling “different” impacts them emotionally and mentally. This mostly negative outlook may be even higher in those immigrant children or children with immigrant parents due to how much they have assimilated into the dominant culture. “The young people portrayed are delicately balanced between two worlds. However, in the minds of many of the protagonists, as well as many of their American peers, difference equals deficit, with the implicit assumption that the ways of the home country are not desirable, and so the young immigrants strive to assimilate as much as possible.” (Clifford 14) By having the literature representation mirror their reality, it enables them to feel understood and heard about their desire to assimilate or fit in.

          Through my research, I found another article by Jennifer Graff titled “Countering Narratives: Teachers’ Discourses About Immigrants and Their Experiences Within the Realm of Children’s and Young Adult Literature” that clearly exemplifies why these young adult immigrant narratives are so necessary. Graff had discussions with students in grades 3-8 about the multicultural literature within their school work. Their responses reflect how much the stigma of immigration within the dominant culture around them has shaped how they view immigration and multicultural identities within literature. “’Why would I want to read books about people who are ruining where we live?’ / ‘I ain’t reading no Spanish speaking books. Why we gotta read their language when they don’t know ours? It’s not fair.’ / ‘Hey, no way I’d read that. They be takin’ like jobs and stuff. Now they’re takin’ the books?’” (Graff 109) Reading this shocked me because you typically think that children would not discriminate in such a harsh manner, but the reality is that they absorb the mindset and beliefs of those around them, whether they are positive or negative. Further proving the point of how important it is to incorporate the different cultural and immigrant narratives within young adult literature.

          So far in my research, I have had my eyes opened to how much of an impact these immigrant narratives can have on America’s youth and have gone down a path of curiosity into how much of this literature is actually being used within the education system currently. To further develop my research, I would like to continue reading articles on young adult immigrant representation, and possibly discuss my findings with my current American Pluralism professor to get her perspective as a prior teacher and educator of the youth here in America.

Clifford, Elizabeth. “Immigrant Narratives: Power, Difference, and Representation in Young-Adult Novels with Immigrant Protagonists.” International Journal of Multicultural Education, vol. 13, no. 1, 2011, pp. 1–20.

Graff, Jennifer. “Countering Narratives: Teachers’ Discourses about Immigrants and Their Experiences within the Realm of Children’s and Young Adult Literature.” English Teaching: Practice and Critique, vol. 9, no. 3, Dec. 2010, pp. 106–131.