I will be diving into two books that I have had the pleasure of reading recently and relating them to the book that I discussed in my last blog post, We Are Water Protectors, by Carole Lindstrom and illustrated by Michaela Goade. The two books I will be discussing are Stella Díaz Never Gives Up, written and illustrated by Angela Dominguez, and Dear Primo: A Letter to My Cousin, written and illustrated by Duncan Tonatiuh.
Stella Díaz Never Gives Up, written and illustrated by Angela Dominguez, follows a shy Mexican-American girl who wants to become an environmental activist. Her love for the ocean and sea creatures fuels her enthusiasm and determination to protect sea life. However, she will need some help on the way to make her dream become a reality. Just like in the book We Are Water Protectors, the main character realizes to fight against the pipeline being built in her people's river, they have to come together and stand against the black snake as one. This books is an amazing and quirky story with a theme of environmental justice that also has aspects embedded throughout on how to be a good friend, growing up, and teamwork. Stella Díaz Never Gives Up has spanish words and phrases throughout the book. Stella expresses how she wishes her Spanish and understanding of others speaking Spanish was better, which I could relate to while reading the book. There were times where I had to pause and look for context clues to help me understand what was written in Spanish. This book is a great way to get students brainstorming ways they can help their community because Stella and her friends are doing that throughout the story. By showing multiple ways people can reduce their use of plastic and ways to raise money, this book is a great jumping off point to help young minds collaborate and build ways to be active in their communities. As well as showing them We Are Water Protectors, during the same discussion, students can get multiple viewpoints on how important protecting Earth and coming together to do so is.
Dear Primo: A Letter to My Cousin, written and illustrated by Duncan Tonatiuh, is a simple picture book that follows two young boys, Charlie and Carlitos, through a penpal exchange. Charlie lives in America and Carlitos, his cousin, lives in Mexico. The two boys describe where they live, what they like to do for fun, how they get to school, and even holidays they celebrate. Even though their lives do not appear to be similar, the two cousins have more in common than they think. This book, like Stella Díaz Never Gives Up, also have Spanish vocabulary words within the story. What is different in Dear Primo, the words are used to label pictures to give the reader context clues to determine what the word means. While I was reading this story the first time through, I did a quick read and then reflected. I thought, what is the author trying to convey through this story? Then, I went back through and began evaluating their different lives. By doing this, I realized they are participating in almost identical events, however they only thing that is different is their environments and what is available to them. This brought me back to a statement from the front sleeve, "Through his artwork and story, Duncan Tonatiuh introduces young readers to a very timely idea- that community is larger than just neighborhoods and schools". These sentences are very powerful because we start to become closed off to environments that are outside of our norm, without realizing how similar they may be. Which reminded me of We Are Water Protectors, in the sense that I feel a great duty to protect the environment and wildlife as much as I can, just like the Ojibwe culture and their feeling of responsibility to protect the water. I never knew how much in common I had to the Ojibwe culture through our passion for environmental justice.
The author and illustrator of Dear Primo, Duncan Tonatiuh, was born in Mexico City and grew up in San Miguel de Allende. He went to highschool in the United States, but spent his summers in Mexico. He graduated from Parsons, the New School for Design in New York City. While attending, Tonatiuh studied both writing and illustrations. Duncan became inspired by the ancient art of the Mixtees and other cultures of Mexico, which he incorporates their stylized forms into his artwork. Through living in both Mexico and the United States, he began to see how much was different yet similar between the two places, which inspired him to write Dear Primo.
During an interview with Robert Liu-Trujillo, Robert asks, "Why is it important to you to explore Mexican culture and share it?" To which Duncan replies, I grew uo in Mexico, but I came to the U.S. when I was a tennager to attend high school and college. ..... miss and appreciate things in Mexico that were always around me... music, food, and traditions". Due to Duncan missing Mexico and its culture, he became curious about Mexican art. While in college, he befriended a Mixtec, an indigenous group from the southern part of Mexico. This is where a lot of his artistic inspiration and style came from. Duncan became interested in Mixtec codex from the 15th century. "I was struck by the drawings' flatness, geometry and repetition of color", Duncan stated in the interview with Robert. Duncan began collaging textures into his drawings with photoshop to give them a more modern feel while completing his thesis in college, and has been making his art that way ever since.
Through this interview, I have learned how authentic and culturally accurate the drawings are through Dear Primo as will as the story. Duncan has lived in both the United States and Mexico, which allows him to relay experiences in an own voice perspective. Also, in the back of Dear Primo, Tonatiuh has included a glossary of the Spanish words he used in his book. If you click on Duncan's website, you can see all the awards he has won! Also, his website is both in English and in Spanish.
Here is a link to Duncan Tonatiuh's website: http://duncantonatiuh.com/
Here is a link to the interview: https://thebullhornblog.org/2018/02/21/duncan-tonatiuh-creative-process-migration-pre-columbian-modern-art/
The author and illustrator of Stella Díaz Never Gives Up, Angela Dominguez, was born in Mexico city, grew up in Texas, and now lives in San Francisco. She has received two Pura Belpré Illustration Honors for her art in Maria Had a Little Llama and Mango, Abuela, and Me. The Pura Belpré Award is a recognition presented to a Latino or Latina author and illustrator whose work best portrays the Latino cultural experience in a work of literature for children or youth.
In the book, Stella Díaz Never Gives Up, Angela does a seamless job of incorporating Spanish into everyday conversations Stella was experiencing. The author made sure to provide context or even a simple translation of what was said in SPanish for the reader to understand the story. I also liked how the author made sure to highlight how people living in Mexico have different dialects when speaking in Spanish.
Here is a link to Angela Dominguez's website: https://www.angeladominguezbooks.com/
Stella Díaz Never Gives Up, Dear Primo: A Letter to My Cousin, and We Are Water Protectors are all books that center around being culturally accurate and authentic. In We Are Water Protectors, the illustrator, Michaela Goade, wanted to honor the author's Ojibwe culture, by changing the protagonists into a traditional robin skirt as she rallies her people. Goade also included illustrations of animals that reflect the Anishinaabe/Ojibwe clan symbols or hold a special significance in traditional teachings. The repeated floral designs were inspired by traditional Anishinaabe woodland floral motifs. The amount of research and cultural representation that Goade put into We Are Water Protectors allowed me to connect to the illustrations in the story Dear Primo, by Duncan Tonatiuh. Duncan spent his college thesis researching the Mixtec codex from the 15th century. The Mixtec are an indigenous group from southern Mexico. Duncan was inspired by their art, as I stated above, and began to draw in a style that incorporated aspects of their culture into a modern take. Both of these stories have such strong and authentic illustrations embedded in them that allows the reader to see the importance of representing one's culture in an accurate way. Also, the author of Stella Díaz has won two awards for two of her other books for her illustrations. She won the Pura Belpre Illustration Hoors which is presented to a Latino or Latina author and illustrator whose work best portrays the Latino cultural experience. All of the authors and illustrators in these three books believe authentically representing their culture is important because it allows the reader to gain accurate insight to people that differ from them in a way that is true.
By all three of these texts having themes around authentic representation, students can reflect on their own culture and be able to authentically describe their experiences. By allowing students an opportunity to reflect on their own culture, students may realize they can relate to some of the characters in the three books. For example, a student may be able to relate to the book Dear Primo, by having family members that live in Mexico or maybe the student has lived in both Mexico and the United States and can relate to both Charlie and Carlitos. Another example could be a student can relate to Stella, by being born in Mexico, but not spending a lot of time there or can relate to Stella wishing she understood and spoke Spanish better. Even with We Are Water Protectors, students may be able to relate to having a strong connection to nature or even having Indigenous relatives or their family being part of a tribe. By having students reflect on their own culture, this opens up a whole conversation about how to respect and appreciate others beliefs, culture and background.
Why does it matter to respect other cultures? By having the opportunity to explore and discuss others cultures, we can see how similar and different we all are. If you had a class talk about their different cultures, this opens up their ability to learn and be exposed to traditions that differs from theirs. By learning about classmates or people's cultures in general, we can take action! We can ask out students to take what they learned from exploring cultures that differ from ours and teach/expose others to different cultures. They could create a "Culture Fair", where people of all different cultures can come and share parts of their lives that are significant and authentic to their specific culture. To do this we could either reach out to members of the community or start in the school and see what cultures make up the school community. There are so many ways to explore culture, which is why reading these books has allowed me to reflect on my own understanding of cultures that differ from mine and allowed me to see that there is so much I can still learn!
Now, I would like to take a moment to reflect on my own. By having three texts that explore Spanish, Ojibwe, Tlingit, and Lakota is amazing. I think by using thee three books as a text set allows for my future students to see these books as a mirror and a window. For the books Dear Primo and Stella Díaz, the use of Spanish throughout both texts allows students to see themselves in the story if they also speak Spanish or have family/friends that speak Spanish around them. The use of bilingual texts allow students who are English learns to feel included. Both these texts also allow students who have lived in Mexico or have family members from Mexico see themselves in the text as well. Also, We Are Water Protectors allows students to see themselves in the text if they are or have family that is a part of an Indigenous tribe. This will allow the student to relate to their passion and connection to protecting the water. All three of these books can lead to a conversation about how all languages are valued and as a community we can help each other learn new words in different languages.
I also believe these books can be used as windows for other readers. Students who do not have any relations to Mexico, speaking Spanish, or Indigenous tribes can listen or read these books and be exposed to cultures that differ from their own. These books provide a real, true, authentic view of the cultures, which allows the reader to have the clearest exposure to a culture they are unfamiliar with. Bilingual texts also serve as a window for English speakers because they expose them to other languages. By doing this, they are expanding their vocabulary and making new connections to their peers who speak other languages (Laminack & Kelly, 104).
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