Genyne Henry Boston

Living the Literature: Race, Gender Construction, and Black Female Adolescents

This article examines how gender construction and the literacy experiences of Black adolescent females can be shaped and motivated by their interaction with specific multicultural texts. This discussion further explores how current theories of race, identity and gender construction, and literacy learning in English language arts classrooms inform and provide additional clarity to the results of a content analysis study of four multicultural contemporary adolescent novels. As such, this discussion offers plausible insight for how a broader view of literacy learning theory may apply when discussing the literacy experiences of Black female adolescents and other marginalized readers.

Journey to the Center

Like most women of color, Latina women are casted with a narrow net and images are often constructed with the archetype that represents mainstream views and assumptions regarding the gender roles prevalent in the Latino culture. This chapter will explore how Latina identity, both patriarchal traditions and feminist thought, is constructed through motherhood. Latina/Chicana feminist epistemology empowers and influences women to develop narratives as redemption; these works are used to (re)claim the pervasive stories and use experiences as analysis of their testimonio.

Always Carrying the Load

White patriarchal social construction of “ideal” or “good” mothering often pathologizes Black motherhood and Black family structure. Historically, Black women have viewed mothering as a “form of emotional and spiritual expression” (Lawson, 2000, p. 26) and through this role, they “[birth] hope, [birth] possibility, [birth] the promise of revolution” (Abdullah, 2012, p.58), despite living in societies that marginalize their very existence. Unfortunately, systems of power have imposed identities, which attempt to rationalize and justify racism, sexism, and poverty as a natural, inevitable part of society.

The Power of Talk-Stories

Traditionally, Asian American women have been socialized and conditioned to take subsidiary roles in families and communities as part of a ranking system based on sex and age found in the family value structure. Sexual politics refer to the power that is ascribed to men and women in a community or society. Under the traditional Asian hierarchy, young women are placed at the bottom, subordinate to father, husband, brother and son (Chow, 1987). This hierarchy is not only found in traditional Asian cultures, but it is perpetuated in Western practices and policies.

Blending Narratives, Blending Lives

The fabric of America is woven by threads from far away lands, and each of us has a story that connects us to someplace else. The continuous increase in America’s diverse population marks trends for societal and global change that America’s education system must acknowledge and be prepared to embrace. According to US Census data and predictions generated by The Associated Press polling, the increasing numbers among minority groups may cause non-Hispanic whites to fall from their majority status by the year 2043.

From Silenced to Voice

Minority youth, especially African Americans, continue to be defined by statistics that reveal members of this student population are facing academic challenges, and, unfortunately, making limited progress within the US education system. When conducting research for this book, two major themes continued to emerge among articles, reports, and studies. The theme showed that the findings of most of the scholars began and concluded with negative, dismal statistics. According to Stillwater and Sable (2013), blacks have the lowest high school graduation rate at 66.1% compared to their peers from other racial/ethnic groups. On average, African American twelfth-grade students read at the same level as white eighth grade students.

Setting the Stage of Silence

In the 21st century classroom and beyond the classroom, we, as educators and researchers, believe students still desire to be introduced to literature they can identify with and believe, in the rudiments of their imagination, is speaking to their real world experience. In his declaration for reform, Gregory Jay (1991) insisted, “Teachers have the responsibility to empower previously marginalized texts and readers, and to teach in a way that we risk surprising and painful changes in the interpretive habits, expectations, and values of our students–and of ourselves” (p. 281).

Central Power, New Frontier

In many tribal traditions of the Native American culture, the role of women is central to the survival of the family and community, and women are respected for their knowledge, ability to procreate, as well as supernatural power that foster another level of reverence. Unlike many Euro-American cultures, women are not as relegated to prescribed gender roles and patriarchal structures are not fundamental to the overall social or communal structure (Taj, 2013). Gender holds different meaning and implications within the Native American culture that is contrary to many other cultures and ethnicities where women are inferior to patriarchal structures.

Will Work For Equity

According to U.S. history, African American women have always been active yet uncelebrated participants of the labor force. While White women’s struggle and movement for change had a name and significant place in history, the struggle and movement for the rights of equality for African American women went unnamed, and sometimes unrecognized. As a part of the labor force African American women were invisible to mainstream American society and its value system. Unlike their Anglo- American counterparts, their participation in the labor force was not optional and it came at an unreasonable price of personal and social sacrifice, and the true measure of that sacrifice has yet to be fully understood and revered.