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Chicano Children’s Authors and Representation at the
PEN World Voices Festival
By lynmiller-lachmann on 2016-06-07 14:02:16
For the last two years I have been in Portugal during the PEN World Voices Festival, but this year I was able to attend for the
first time in a while. I used to work a festival blogger, one of the high points of the year for me, but much of the festival has
changed and we bloggers don’t get the free run that we used to. On the other hand, living in New York City rather than
Albany has allowed me to pick and choose from the entire schedule instead of rushing back for my weekend commitments
upstate. [caption id="attachment_8493" align="alignleft" width="212" |i Carmen Tafolla
speaks, and beside her is the paddle used to punish children who spoke Spanish at school.[/caption] Each year PEN chooses
a country as its festival focus. This year, the country was Mexico, and the panel sponsored by the PEN Children’s
Committee highlighted the Tomas Rivera Award, given to outstanding children’s and young adult books that portray the
Mexican-American experience. Unlike the Pura Belpré Award, given by the American Library Association, this award from
the Texas State University College of Education in San Marcos, where Tomas Rivera graduated, focuses on the books rather
than on the author or illustrator’s heritage. Thus, one of the panelists was our own PEN Children’s Committee former co-
chair Susanna Reich who, along with illustrator Rail Colon (who is Puerto Rican), won the Tomas Rivera Award in 2006 for
their biography of José Limon, José!: Born to Dance. The other panelists were multiple award winners Carmen Tafolla
(author of The Holy Tortilla and a Pot of Beans and What Can You Do with a Paleta?) and author/illustrator Duncan
Tonatiuh (Separate Is Never Equal: Sylvia Mendez and Her Family's Fight for Desegregation, Pancho Rabbit and the
Coyote: A Migrant’s Tale, and Diego Rivera: His World and Ours), award committee chair and Texas State University
College of Education in San Marcos faculty member Jesse Gainer, and scholar Manuel M. Martin-Rodriguez, who served as
moderator. Martin-Rodriguez began with a summary of Rivera’s life and philosophy. According to Rivera, there are three
keys to becoming a productive part of the community: remembering, discovery, and volition/agency. These keys informed
the discussion that followed. Tafolla is the author of picture books, poetry, and short stories; a storyteller and performance
artist (as she showed us the following night in a stunning performance at the Nuyorican Poets Cafe); and an activist. She
began by showing the audience a wooden paddle with holes drilled into it. This paddle was used to hit children — herself
included — who spoke Spanish instead of English only in their Texas schools. The holes made the paddle move faster
before striking the child’s rear end. “We were the spoils of war,” Tafolla said, referring to the wars in 1836 and 1846-48 in
which Mexico ceded its northern lands and all of the people living there to the United States. When she was growing up in
the 1970s, books portrayed her people as “dirty Mexicans,” if they portrayed them at all, and she and her classmates
attributed Mexican ancestry to popular culture figures such as Charles Bronson so they’d have someone with whom to
identify. But even though the publishers refused to publish stories by writers of Mexican heritage, they had an oral culture,
folklore, and poetry, and many of her peers bought printing presses to put out their own newspapers and books. Tafolla cited
the Tomas Rivera Award as one of the things that opened up the world of publishing so children could see themselves
reflected and celebrated. [caption id="attachment_8494" align="alignright" width="236"
Susanna Reich and Ratl Colén show off their picture book José! Born to Dance.
[/caption] Reich talked about coming from a different place — from the world of dance. She had to research the life of an
immigrant from Mexico, his experiences and his culture. Limon grew up in a prosperous home, but his idyllic childhood
came to an end with the Mexican Revolution and his and his family’s flight to the United States. Reich called it gratifying to
get the award, proof that one can write outside a culture and with enough research, “get it right.” Colon talked about the
connections between Mexican and Puerto Rican culture and the immigration experience that he shared with Limon, which
involved having to learn a new language. Like Colon, José Limon first wanted to be an artist, but things didn’t work out for
him — his preferred style was out of fashion and the teachers felt others were more talented. That’s when Limon discovered
dance as a means of artistic expression. Col6n had to do a lot of research about dance, the various positions and moves so
PINC ILS
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that he could portray them accurately in the picture book. Tonatiuh, who lives in
Mexico, cited the Cooperative Children's Book Center statistics on the underrepresentation of Latino authors, illustrators,
and main characters in children’s literature. He pointed out that awards like the Tomas Rivera and Pura Belpré (which he
also won for Separate Is Never Equal) encourage the publication of books by and about Latinos and help people to find
these books. He has visited many schools and seen what children do to extend the books, such as writing plays based on
Pancho Rabbit. He finds this energizing for him as a book creator as he sees first-hand how much these books mean to
children who share his heritage and experiences. As Gainer explained, Tomas Rivera, the author of Yno se lo trago la tierra
/ And the Earth Did Not Devour Him, saw literature as a tool for collective decolonization. And the paddles may be gone,
but the problems remain — too much testing and not enough reading, inadequate representation, censorship in Arizona and
elsewhere. Gainer cited the “volition/agency” portion of Rivera’s philosophy in highlighting the community activities
surrounding the award. As part of the awards celebrations, young people interact with the winning texts through their own
artwork, pOetry, and performances. Children and their elders participate together. And since the events are held on the San
Marcos campus, children see the university as a path for the future and a hospitable place. Gainer would like to increase the
exposure of the awards, and the activities, beyond central Texas, and he saw his appearance at the PEN World Voices
Festival as a means of doing this. In the discussion among the panelists, Col6n criticized the overreliance on testing in
schools. “We have to be a lot more creative than this testing,” he said. Reich discussed the idea of mirrors and windows. The
panelists highlighted the books as mirrors, but all children need to become familiar with worlds different from their own
Avoiding a long period of uncomfortable silence, I asked the first audience question, about the role of small presses. Tafolla
said that she started out with small presses — The Holy Tortilla and a Pot of Beans came from San Antonio-based indie
Wings Press — and they’re still serving as a means for marginalized writers to have their voices heard. “When something I
write about is really important, I can count on small presses to publish it,” Tafolla said, adding that a major house would care
more about the financial return. She’s pleased that the Tomas Rivera gives equal consideration to books published by small
presses. “Too many award committees are tricked by the marketing packages” of big houses, she said, adding that “gutsy
award committees’ don’t look for cookie-cutter books. Instead, they ask the question: What are kids hungry to hear? What
do they need to hear? She talked about authors who won awards and were then picked up by major publishers. Gainer added
that “if we don’t support small presses, we won’t have them.” PEN Children’s Committee co-chair asked about book
banning like the removal of books that were part of the Mexican-American Studies program shut down by the state of
Arizona. Tafolla’s books were among those removed, and she observed that the banners had never read the books. But the
students in the Mexican-American Studies program got excellent grades and went to college at a very high rate; the
shutdown of the program represented the state’s effort to undermine this achievement. A third question had to do with
Mexican-American parents’ support (or lack of support) for their kids pursuing careers in literature and the arts. The
panelists didn’t see that happening. Based on the participation of parents, grandparents, and other relatives in school and
community events around books and reading, they see very strong support. “We have plenty of writers,” Tafolla said. “The
writers aren’t having the doors open for them.” A follow-up question had to do with how publishing may change when
Latinos are the majority in the United States. Reich said Latinos are already a majority in California and Texas, but it’s not
“flicking a magic switch” among New York publishers, and we need to keep the pressure on the publishers. The final
question was about the impact of awards on bringing about change among the corporate publishers. Tonatiuh has seen more
celebration of diversity; his large publisher is more open to diversity today than he has experienced with publishers in the
past. He said everyone can support change by buying diverse books and writing publishers in support of those books. Tafolla
agreed. Population numbers won’t do it because we don’t live in a democracy but an oligarchy, and we have to infiltrate the
system. We have to fight on the terms that exist, which means supporting diverse authors by buying their books. Colon
speculated on the impact of Lin-Manuel Miranda’s hit musical Hamilton, and said that one day, this will happen to books.
Change can come very quickly if we work together to make it happen.
