1

Resources: Multicultural Education

Prepared by Dr. Haroldo Fontaine, Florida SouthWestern State College, Dr. Debbie Giambo,

Florida Gulf Coast University, Dr. Eileen DeLuca, Florida SouthWestern State College

Fiction

1. Alvarez, Julia. How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents. Chapel Hill: Algonquin Books, 2010. Print.

Acclaimed writer Julia Alvarezs brilliant and buoyant and beloved first novel gives voice to four sisters recounting their adventures growing up in two cultures.

Selected as a Notable Book by both the New York Times and the American

Library Association, it won the PEN Oakland/Josephine Miles Award for books

with a multicultural perspective and was chosen by New York librarians as one of

twenty-one classics for the twenty-first century. Ms. Alvarez was recently

honored with the 2013 National Medal of Arts for her extraordinary

storytelling. In this debut novel, the Garca sistersCarla, Sandra, Yolanda, and Sofaand their family must flee their home in the Dominican Republic after their fathers role in an attempt to overthrow a tyrannical dictator is discovered. They arrive in New York City in 1960 to a life far removed from their existence

in the Caribbean. In the wild and wondrous and not always welcoming U.S.A.,

their parents try to hold on to their old ways, but the girls try find new lives: by

forgetting their Spanish, by straightening their hair and wearing fringed bell

bottoms. For them, it is at once liberating and excruciating to be caught between

the old world and the new.How the Garca Girls Lost Their Accents sets the

sisters free to tell their most intimate stories about how they came to be at homeand not at homein America (from the description found in Amazon.com).

2. Alvarez, Julia. Return to Sender. New York: Knopf, 2009. Print.

Winner of the Pura Belpre and Americas Awards. The seed for the novel came when I got involved translating at local schools for the children of Mexican

migrant workers who have now made their way up to Vermont. (And boosted our

compromised Latino population!) These workers are now doing the milking on

many of our dairy farms. Without them, many of our small farmers could not

survive, as they, too, are being squeezed by the high cost of farming and a dearth

of workers. Seeing how baffled the Mexican children and their classmates were

about how to understand this situation that had thrown us all together, I thought:

we need a story to understand what is happening to us! The title comes from a

dragnet operation that the Department of Homeland Security conducted in 2006,

named, Return to Sender. Work places were raided and undocumented workers

were seized. Their children were the biggest casualties of this operation -- left

behind to be soothed and reassured until they could be finally reunited with their

parents (http://return-to-sender.juliaalvarez.com/). 3. Cisneros, Sandra. The House on Mango Street. New York: Vintage, 1991. Print.

Acclaimed by critics, beloved by readers of all ages, taught everywhere from

inner-city grade schools to universities across the country, and translated all over

the world, The House on Mango Street is the remarkable story of Esperanza

2

Cordero. Told in a series of vignettessometimes heartbreaking, sometimes

deeply joyous it is the story of a young Latina girl growing up in Chicago,

inventing for herself who and what she will become. Few other books in our time

have touched so many readers (from the description found in Amazon.com).

4. Danticat, Edwidge. Breath, Eyes, Memory. New York: Vintage Books, 1994. Print.

At the age of twelve, Sophie Caco is sent from her impoverished village of

Croix-des-Rosets to New York, to be reunited with a mother she barely

remembers. There she discovers secrets that no child should ever know, and a

legacy of shame that can be healed only when she returns to Haiti--to the women

who first reared her. What ensues is a passionate journey through a landscape

charged with the supernatural and scarred by political violence, in a novel that

bears witness to the traditions, suffering, and wisdom of an entire people (from

the description found in Amazon.com).

5. Danticat, Edwidge. The Farming of Bones. New York: SoHo Press, 1998. Print.

It is 1937 and Amabelle Dsir, a young Haitian woman living in the Dominican

Republic, has built herself a life as the servant and companion of the wife of a

wealthy colonel. She and Sebastien, a cane worker, are deeply in love and plan to

marry. But Amabelle's world collapses when a wave of genocidal violence, driven

by Dominican dictator Rafael Trujillo, leads to the slaughter of Haitian workers.

Amabelle and Sebastien are separated, and she desperately flees the tide of

violence for a Haiti she barely remembers. In this harrowing story of love and

survivalfrom one of the most important voices of her generationis an

unforgettable memorial to the victims of the Parsley Massacre and a testimony to

the power of human memory (from the description found in Amazon.com).

6. El Norte. Dir. Gregory Nava. Perf. Zaide Silvia Gutirrez, David Villalpando, and

Ernesto Gmez Cruz. Cinecom Pictures, 1983. Film.

Mayan Indian peasants, tired of being thought of as nothing more than "brazos

fuertes" ("strong arms", i.e., manual laborers) and organizing in an effort to

improve their lot in life, are discovered by the Guatemalan army. After the army

destroys their village and family, a brother and sister, teenagers who just barely

escaped the massacre, decide they must flee to "El Norte" ("the North", i.e., the

USA). After receiving clandestine help from friends and humorous advice from a

veteran immigrant on strategies for traveling through Mexico, they make their

way by truck, bus and other means to Los Angeles, where they try to make a new

life as young, and undocumented immigrants (imdb.com).

7. Freedom Writers. Dir. Richard LaGravenese. Perf. Hilary Swank, Imelda

Staunton, Patrick Dempsey. Paramount Pictures, 2007. Film.

A young teacher inspires her class of at-risk students to learn tolerance, apply

themselves and pursue education beyond high school (imdb.com).

8. Gonzales, Christina Diaz. The Red Umbrella. New York: Yearling Books, 2011. Print.

3

The Red Umbrella is the moving tale of a 14-year-old girl's journey from Cuba to America as part of Operation Pedro Panan organized exodus of more than 14,000 unaccompanied children, whose parents sent them away to escape Fidel

Castro's revolution (from the description found in Amazon.com). 9. Grande, Reyna. Across a Hundred Mountains. Chicago: Washington Square Press, 2007.

Print.

Winner of the American Book Award, Across a Hundred Mountains is a stunning and poignant novel about a young girl who leaves her small town in

Mexico to find her father, who left his family to find work in Americaa story of migration, loss, and discovery. After a tragedy separates her from her mother,

Juana Garca leaves in search of her father, who left them two years earlier. Out

of money and in need of someone to help her across the border, Juana meets

Adelina Vasquez, a young woman who left her family in California to follow her

lover to Mexico. Finding themselvesin a Tijuana jailin desperate circumstances, they offer each other much needed material and spiritual support

and ultimately become linked forever in the most unexpected of ways. In Across a

Hundred Mountains, Reyna Grande puts a human face on the controversial issue

of immigration, helping readers to better understand those who risk life and limb

every day in pursuit of a better life (from the description found in Amazon.com). 10. Jimenez, Francisco. The Circuit: Stories from the Life of a Migrant Child. Albuquerque:

University of New Mexico Press, 1997. Print.

After dark in a Mexican border town, a father holds open a hole in a wire fence as his wife and two small boys crawl through. So begins life in the United States

for many people every day. And so begins this collection of twelve

autobiographical stories by Santa Clara University professor Francisco

Jimnez, who at the age of four illegally crossed the border with his family in

1947. "The Circuit," the story of young Panchito and his trumpet, is one of the

most widely anthologized stories in Chicano literature. At long last, Jimnez

offers more about the wise, sensitive little boy who has grown into a role model

for subsequent generations of immigrants. These independent but intertwined

stories follow the family through their circuit, from picking cotton and

strawberries to topping carrots--and back agai--over a number of years. As it

moves from one labor camp to the next, the little family of four grows into ten.

Impermanence and poverty define their lives. But with faith, hope, and back-

breaking work, the family endures (from the description found in Amazon.com). 11. Lauture, Mireille. Gade yon kado Remi jwenn / Remi's Magical Gift (Mancy's Haitian

Folktale Collection) (Haitian and English Edition). Bloomington: AuthorHouse, 2012.

Print.

Mancy's Haitian Folktale Collection is a series of 10 folktales told by the

authors mother, Mrs. Hermance (Mancy) Garon. In the past, Haitian-Creole was

only a spoken language, and these stories were only told out loud. Today, Haitian-

Creole is, along with French, an official language in Haiti, and is also taught

abroad. The author, therefore, chose to publish a selected few of her favorite

folktales to continue her mothers wondrous legacy by reaching out to a much

larger audience (from the description found in Amazon.com).

4

12. Phelan, James, and Gerald Graff. The Tempest: A Case Study in Critical Controversy

(Case Studies in Critical Controversy). New York: Bedford/St. Martin's, 2008. Print.

Designed for "teaching the conflicts," this critical edition of Shakespeares The Tempest reprints the authoritative Bevington text of the play along with 21

selections representing major critical and cultural controversies surrounding the

work. The distinctive editorial material helps readers grapple not only with the

plays critical issues but also with cultural debates about literature itself (from the description found in Amazon.com).

13. Skyhorse, Brando. The Madonnas of Echo Park: A Novel. New York: Simon and Schuster, 2010. Print.

We slipped into this country like thieves, onto the land that once was ours. With these words, spoken by an illegal Mexican day laborer, The Madonnas of Echo

Park takes us into the unseen world of Los Angeles, following the men and

women who cook the meals, clean the homes, and struggle to lose their ethnic

identity in the pursuit of the American dream (from the description found in Amazon.com).

14. Stand and Deliver. Dir. Ramn Menndez. Perf. Edward James Olmos, Lou Diamond Phillips. Warner Brothers, 1988. Film.

Jaime Escalante is a mathematics teacher in a school in a Hispanic neighborhood. Convinced that his students have potential, he adopts

unconventional teaching methods to help gang members and no-hopers pass the

rigorous Advanced Placement exam in calculus (imdb.com). 15. Walkout. Dir. Edward James Olmos. Perf. Alexa PenaVega, Michael Pea, Yancey Arias.

Home Box Office, 2005. Film.

Walkout is the true story of a young Mexican American high school teacher, Sal Castro. He mentors a group of students in East Los Angeles, when the students

decide to stage a peaceful walkout to protest the injustices of the public school

system. Set against the background of the Civil Rights Movement of 1968, it is a

story of courage and the fight for justice and empowerment (imdb.com). 16. You may also visit http://www.imdb.com/list/ls002417064/ for a longer list of

multicultural films.

Nonfiction

1. Barker, Holly M. Bravo for the Marshallese: Regaining Control in a Post-Nuclear, Post-

Colonial World. Boston: Cengage Learning, 2012. Print.

This case study describes the role an applied anthropologist takes to help

Marshallese communities understand the impact of radiation exposure on the

environment and themselves, and addresses problems stemming from the U.S.

nuclear weapons testing program conducted in the Marshall Islands from 1946-

1958. Through archival, life history, and ethnographic research, the author

5

constructs a compelling history of the testing program from a Marshallese

perspective (from the description found in Amazon.com).

2. Bennett, Christine I. Comprehensive Multicultural Education: Theory and Practice. 8th

ed. New York: Pearson, 2014. eBook.

Taking the view that the primary goal of public education in the United States is

to foster the intellectual and personal development of all children and youth to

their fullest potential, Christine Bennett aims to help prepare teachers who are

informed and caring advocates for students from all cultural, racial,

socioeconomic, linguistic, and national backgrounds. Comprehensive

Multicultural Education provides a curriculum model with six goals and

numerous lesson plans illustrating how each goal can be implemented in the

classroom. It emphasizes diversity within and across ethnic groups to help

teachers understand students' cultural and individual differences. (Beginning with

the sixth edition, the 8th

also) features five new lesson plans including one in

physics, one in mathematics, and one in technology as well as an organizational

chart to illustrate the content area, grade levels, and multicultural curriculum goal

for all 26 lessons (from the description found in Amazon.com).

3. Cepeda, Raquel. Bird of Paradise: How I Became Latina. New York: Simon and

Schuster, 2013. Print.

In 2009, when Raquel Cepeda almost lost her estranged father to heart disease,

she was terrified shed never know the truth about her ancestry. Every time she

looked in the mirror, Cepeda saw a mysterya tapestry of races and ethnicities

that came together in an ambiguous mix. With time running out, she decided to

embark on an archaeological dig of sorts by using the science of ancestral DNA

testing to excavate everything she could about her genetic history (from the

description found in Amazon.com).

4. Christiansen, Paul D., and Michelle Young. Yesterday, Today & Tomorrow: Meeting the

Challenge of Our Multicultural America & Beyond. San Francisco: Caddo Gap Press,

1996. Print.

A volume of human stories, personal experiences, and anecdotes that display the

multicultural diversity of the United States and the global community (from the

description found in Amazon.com).

5. Danticat, Edwidge, ed. The Butterfly's Way: Voices from the Haitian Dyaspora in the

United States. New York: SoHo Press, 2003. Print.

In four sectionsChildhood, Migration, First Generation, and Returnthe

contributors to this anthology write powerfully, often hauntingly, of their lives in

Haiti and the United States (from the description found in Amazon.com).

6

6. Diaz, Carlos F. Multicultural Education in the 21st Century. New York: Longman, 2001.

Print.

This collection of readings examines the goals, possibilities, and challenges of

multiculturalism in the new millennium. It offers students a wide range of

perspectives from today's most renowned multicultural educators and will inspire

critical reflection and lively classroom debate(from the description found in

Amazon.com).

7. Fadiman, Anne. The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down: A Hmong Child, Her

American Doctors, and the Collision of Two Cultures. London: Macmillan, 1997. Print.

This ethnography explores the clash between a small county hospital in

California and a refugee family from Laos over the care of Lia Lee, a Hmong

child diagnosed with severe epilepsy (from the description found in

Amazon.com).

8. Fanon, Frantz. The Wretched of the Earth. Trans. Richard Philcox. New York: Grove Press, 2004. Print.

A distinguished psychiatrist from Martinique who took part in the Algerian

Nationalist Movement, Frantz Fanon was one of the most important theorists of

revolutionary struggle, colonialism, and racial difference in history. Fanons

masterwork is a classic alongside Edward Saids Orientalism or The

Autobiography of Malcolm X, and it is now available in a new translation that

updates its language for a new generation of readers. The Wretched of the Earth is

a brilliant analysis of the psychology of the colonized and their path to liberation.

Bearing singular insight into the rage and frustration of colonized peoples, and the

role of violence in effecting historical change, the book incisively attacks the twin

perils of postindependence colonial politics: the disenfranchisement of the masses

by the elites on the one hand, and intertribal and interfaith animosities on the

other. Fanons analysis, a veritable handbook of social reorganization for leaders

of emerging nations, has been reflected all too clearly in the corruption and

violence that has plagued present-day Africa. The Wretched of the Earth has had a

major impact on civil rights, anticolonialism, and black consciousness movements

around the world, and this bold new translation by Richard Philcox reaffirms it as

a landmark (from the description found in Amazon.com).

9. Food Chains: The Revolution in Americas Fields. Dir. Sanjay Rawal. Perf. Forest Whitaker. Screen Media Films, 2014. Film.

In this expos, an intrepid group of Florida farmworkers battle to defeat the $4 trillion global supermarket industry through their ingenious Fair Food program,

which partners with growers and retailers to improve working conditions for farm

laborers in the United States. The narrative of the film focuses on an intrepid and

highly lauded group of tomato pickers from Southern Florida the Coalition of

7

Immokalee Workers or CIW who are revolutionizing farm labor (http://www.foodchainsfilm.com/).

10. Heath, Shirley Brice. Ways with Words: Language, Life and Work in Communities and

Classrooms. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983. Print.

Ways with Words, first published in 1983, is a classic study of children learning

to use language at home and at school in two communities only a few miles apart

in the south-eastern United States (from the description found in Amazon.com).

11. Hedges, Chris, and Joe Sacco. Days of Destruction, Days of Revolt. New York: Nation

Books, 2014. Print.

Pulitzer Prizewinner Chris Hedges and award-winning cartoonist and journalist

Joe Sacco set out to take a look at the sacrifice zones, those areas in America that

have been offered up for exploitation in the name of profit, progress, and

technological advancement. They wanted to show in words and drawings what

life looks like in places where the marketplace rules without constraints, where

human beings and the natural world are used and then discarded to maximize

profit. Days of Destruction, Days of Revolt is the searing account of their travels

(from the description found in Amazon.com).

12. Herrera, Socorro. Biography-Driven Culturally Responsive Teaching. New York:

Teachers College Press, 2010. Print.

''Biography-driven instruction is one powerful way to find common ground among all students in the classroom. Everyone has a biography that is distinct and

unique. The author uses concrete examples and 'how to' approaches when

describing theory and its application. The book is very much needed!'' (from the

description found in Amazon.com).

13. Holloway, Kris. Monique and the Mango Rains: Two Years With a Midwife in Mali.

Long Grove: Waveland Press, 2006.

This is an inspiring story of Monique Dembele, an accidental midwife who

became a legend, and Kris Holloway, the young Peace Corps volunteer who

became her closest confidante. In a small village in Mali, West Africa, Monique

saved lives and dispensed hope every day in a place where childbirth is a life-and-

death matter and where many children are buried before they cut a tooth (from

the description found in Amazon.com).

14. National Human Genome Research Institute. National Institutes of Health, 18 March

2014. Web. 19 Feb. 2015.

The Human Genome Project (HGP) was one of the great feats of exploration in

history - an inward voyage of discovery rather than an outward exploration of the

planet or the cosmos; an international research effort to sequence and map all of

the genes - together known as the genome - of members of our species, Homo

sapiens. Completed in April 2003, the HGP gave us the ability, for the first time,

to read nature's complete genetic blueprint for building a human being

(http://www.genome.gov/10001772).

8

15. Nieto, Sonia, and Patty Bode. Affirming Diversity: The Sociopolitical Context of

Multicultural Education. 6th

ed. New York: Pearson, 2012. Print.

Explore how personal, social, political, cultural, and educational factors affect

the success or failure of students in today's classroom in this best-selling text by

Sonia Nieto and Patty Bode. Expanding upon the popular case-study

approach, Affirming Diversity: The Sociopolitical Context of Multicultural

Education examines the lives of real students who are affected by multicultural

education, or the lack of it. This social justice view of multicultural education

encourages teachers to work for social change in their classrooms, schools, and

communities (from back cover).

16. Ratner, Vaddey. In the Shadow of the Banyan. New York: Simon and Schuster, 2012.

Print.

For seven-year-old Raami, the shattering end of childhood begins with the

footsteps of her father returning home in the early dawn hours bringing details of

the civil war that has overwhelmed the streets of Phnom Penh, Cambodia's

capital. Soon the family's world of carefully guarded royal privilege is swept up in

the chaos of revolution and forced exodus (from the description found in

Amazon.com).

17. Said, Edward W. Culture and Imperialism. New York: Vintage Books, 1993. Print.

A landmark work from the intellectually auspicious author of Orientalism that

explores the long-overlooked connections between the Western imperial endeavor

and the culture that both reflected and reinforced it. "Said is a brilliant . . . scholar,

aesthete and political activist."--Washington Post Book World (from the

description found in Amazon.com).

18. Satrapi, Marjane. The Complete Persepolis. New York: Pantheon Books, 2007. Print.

Persepolis is the story of Satrapi's unforgettable childhood and coming of age

within a large and loving family in Tehran during the Islamic Revolution; of the

contradictions between private life and public life in a country plagued by

political upheaval; of her high school years in Vienna facing the trials of

adolescence far from her family; of her homecoming--both sweet and terrible;

and, finally, of her self-imposed exile from her beloved homeland (from the

description found in Amazon.com).

9

19. Sleeter, Christine E., ed. Empowerment through Multicultural Education. Albany: State

University of New York Press, 1991. Print.

This book reframes questions about student diversity by probing the extent to

which society serves the interest of all and by examining the empowerment of

members of oppressed groups to direct social change. It examines the

empowerment of children who are members of oppressed racial groups, lower

class, and female, based on the ideas of multicultural education. A series of

ethnographic studies illustrates how such young people view their world, their

power to affect it in their own interests, and their response to what is usually a

growing sense of powerlessness as they mature. The authors also conceptualize

contributions of multicultural education to empowering young people, and report

investigations of multicultural education projects educators have used for student

empowerment. Issues in teacher education are also discussed (from back cover).

20. Speed, Shannon. Rights in Rebellion: Indigenous Struggle and Human Rights in Chiapas.

Redwood City: Stanford University Press, 2008. Print.

Rights in Rebellion examines the global discourse of human rights and its

influence on the local culture, identity, and forms of resistance. Through a multi-

sited ethnography of various groups in the indigenous communities of Chiapas,

Mexicofrom paramilitaries to a Zapatista community, an indigenous human

rights organization, and the Zapatista Good Governance Councilsthe book

explores how different groups actively engage with the discourse of rights,

adapting it to their own individual subjectivities and goals, and develop new

forms of resistance to the neoliberal model and its particular configurations of

power (from the description found in Amazon.com).

21. Steinberg, Shirley R., ed. Multi/Intercultural Conversations: A Reader. New York: Peter

Lang, 2001. Print.

Multi/Intercultural Conversations brings together voices from all over the world

in the examination of critical pedagogy and the politics of identity in regard to

viewing education as a global endeavor. The authors are teachers, parents,

professors, and writers engaged in projects of social justice and education with the

desire to open a conversation between both students and teachers about education

in the new millennium (from the description found in Amazon.com).

22. Takaki, Ronald. A Different Mirror: A History of Multicultural America. New York:

Back Bay Books, 1993. Print.

A dramatic new retelling of our nations past by todays preeminent multiculturalism scholar this book examines Americas history in a different mirrorfrom the perspective of the minority people themselves (from back cover).

10

23. Understanding Race. American Anthropological Association. Web. 19 Feb. 2015.

Looking through the eyes of history, science and lived experience, the RACE

Project explains differences among people and reveals the reality and unreality

of race. The story of race is complex and may challenge how we think about

race and human variation, about the differences and similarities among people

(http://www.understandingrace.org/about/index.html).

24. Villaseor, Victor. Burro Genius: A Memoir. New York: Harper Collins, 2005. Print.

Growing up in the 1940s on his family's gracious Southern California ranch,

young Villaseor envisions a cowboy's life, just like he's seen in western movies

and learned from his loving but occasionally abrasive Mexican-born pap.

Reality, however, finds him in the unwelcome company of an American school

system where he doesn't fit in and is ostracized thanks to his undiagnosed dyslexia

and limited English. Throughout this spirited memoir, novelist and nonfiction

writer Villaseor (who has chronicled his family history in Rain of Gold; Wild

Steps of Heaven; Thirteen Senses; etc.) faces an entourage of abusive teachers and

embittered classmates who chip away at his confidence, leading him to the brink

of adopting a personal philosophy of violence-for-respect. He seeks support in the

strength of his close-knit family, especially his brother Joseph. But when Joseph

dies of a rare, unexplained disease, Villaseor tries to embody what made his

brother such a hero. Despite all the humiliation, frustration and hardship

Villaseor encounters throughout his youth, he maintains an astonishingly

positive and compassionate attitude. His retelling of sometimes humorous,

sometimes chilling childhood experience is at once painful and gratifying. He

imaginatively and poetically remembers his tumultuous childhood with the

simplicity of a child and the introspection of a sage (from the description found

in Amazon.com).

25. Walls, Jeannette. The Glass Castle. New York: Scribner, 2003. Print.

Jeannette Walls grew up with parents whose ideals and stubborn nonconformity

were both their curse and their salvation. This is a story of triumph against all

odds, but also a tender, moving tale of unconditional love in a family that despite

its profound flaws gave her the fiery determination to carve out a successful life

on her own terms (from the description found in Amazon.com).