But it quickly became
apparent that neither I nor my Spanish-speaking students were going to connect
to the kind of “Spanglish” used in the “Skippyjon Jones” books, principally
because it wasn’t Spanglish at all. When I was in middle school, some of the
kids in my class would make fun of Spanish and of our Spanish teacher by just
adding “o” to the end of the words. They would say things like, “I-o don’t
like-o this class-o,” and then high-five each other and say, “Nice Spanish,
dude.” “Skippyjon Jones” operates on the same principle, creating gems like
“ding-a-lito,” “stinkitos,” and “snifferito.” Skippyjon Jones is a cat who
pretends to be a Chihuahua and talks in a fake Mexican accent (“they are reely,
reely beeg, dude”) and calls himself “El Skippito Friskito,” which drives me
crazy because there are no k’s in Spanish. If one of my students started
talking that way, we would have conversations about stereotypes and offensive
behavior. Yet somehow these are popular children’s books.
A few pages into the read-aloud,
I realized I had made a big mistake. I tripped over the fake Spanish words and
ridiculous names (Poquito Tito? What does that even mean?). In order to have
read the book well, I would have had to adopt a fake Mexican accent and
essentially mock the way that Mexican people speak, even clapping along to fake
mariachi songs with lyrics like, “Diggeree diggeroo diggerito (clap-clap) / We
learned something new from Skippito! (clap-clap) He scares them to death/ with
his old pickle breath,/ and that’s how we get fossilitos! (clap-clap).” Note:
This is also false history. This is not, in fact, how the dinosaurs became
extinct.
Tongue-tied and
embarrassed, I put the book down. Later, still ashamed that I had subjected my
students to even ten minutes of that horrific read-aloud, I tossed both the
book and the floor puzzle in the trash. Even a gorgeous floor puzzle and a free
book were not worth subjecting my students to toxic racial and linguistic
stereotypes.
—Grace Cornell Gonzales
(published 10/5/13)
Do you read the books before you share them with your children?
ReplyDeleteThanks for asking; that is a great question. I do generally read books to myself before I read them aloud to my students. With that particular book, I had flipped through the pages and had listened to the retired teacher who volunteered read pieces of another book in the series. Interestingly, it wasn't until I tried reading the book aloud myself that I noticed how problematic the language was--a definite oversight on my part. But there is something about reading aloud that changes the quality of your experience with a book-- something I definitely learned the hard way from that experience.
DeleteI just stumbled across this blog and read the essay on Skippyjon Jones. I too had never read the books, just seen the cute characters on the covers. I think I even bought one once for my daughter. It makes kind of me sick that these books are pushed on our children at school book fairs and such. It mostly makes me sad that these mock-Spanish stereotypes still pass for funny or clever. I'm grateful to you and Beverly for writing this blog and for the reviews of books. And I think it's always true, when you know better, you do better. So I wont' beat myself up about it, just do better. Thanks from another Bay Area educator.
ReplyDeleteI just found this blog and I am very impressed with all the content. I teach in higher education and a colleague of mine wrote an critique on Skippyjon Jones, specifically looking at the way mock Spanish is used in the book to position Spanish speaker.
ReplyDeleteHere is the reference:
Martínez-Roldán, C. M. (2013). The representation of Latinos and the use of Spanish: A critical content analysis of Skippyjon Jones. Journal of Children’s Literature, 39(1), 5-14.
Thank you, A. Garcia, for your comment and recommendation. After reading "Skippyjon Jones: Transforming a Racist Stereotype into an Industry" (http://decoloresreviews.blogspot.com/2013/04/skippyjon-jones-and-big-bones.html), Evelyn Arizpe also recommended Carmen Martnez-Roldán's article. It's excellent.
DeleteI am so glad to see that someone else reacted the way I did to Skippy... they regularly circulate from the library I used to work at, so I was interested to read one of the books. Once I did, I was appalled at their whole concept. It was clearly a riff from the "I am the frito bandito" school of bigotry (?) and I cannot believe people enjoy them.... the stories just aren't, to me, good enough to overcome that stereotyping. I mentioned it to the children's librarian and she was sort of non-committal....
ReplyDeleteI would have loved to KEEP that text and use it as a metaphorical springboard into a conversation about the dangers of stereotypes and reductive language choices. How can we challenge publications that operate on pejoratives?
ReplyDeleteHow can we keep this offensive text and turn it into a social justice unit?
Horrifying book, so I understand the impulse to just toss it in the trash. I also look at this from a librarian point of view and as a teaching moment.
I agree with you, Stephanie. Racist children's books such as the Skippyjon Jones series can be valuable in the hands of experienced educators who are working on social justice units with upper-level students. But. Just as I would never leave an open bottle of orange-flavored baby aspirin in a kindergarten classroom, I would never leave these kinds of books or games anywhere impressionable youngsters could get near them.
ReplyDeleteI read an interesting interview this morning about books let me SJJ, and other culturally insensitive books. A researcher who studies children's books made the argument that books hiding, ignoring, or throwing away books with racists themes ignores a source of racism. And that these books (Cat in the hat, Mickey Mouse, SJJ, etc) should be read and explained to children so they can understand the roots of racism so they can recognize it as they grow up.
ReplyDeleteI think there is no shortage of opportunities to observe and explain racism to children in this world, unfortunately, and it is incumbent upon all of us who are opposed to racism to take as many of them as we can in order to help kids understand the kind of world they're growing up in, and what they can do about it. For that reason, I'm not going out of my way to read and explain racist books to my kids. They do encounter racism in life and on tv and suchlike, and I try to note it and talk about it to them when that happens (obviously, I don't always succeed). I'd rather put my energy toward making sure they have books with good representations of Native children, Latinx children, and other children of color, and I do try to make sure that books I know are racist don't join the collection (a picture-book version of Peter Pan from my childhood, while I'm touched that my mom saved many of my books, is not one that we need).
ReplyDeleteThat said, if an older kid finds a book that encodes ideologies I find noxious, I'm not necessarily going to slap it out of their hands, either. I've been reading D'Aulaires' Greek Myths to my godson, who is 8, lately, and have been trying to point out and push back against the misogyny/sexism in them as we read. Why read them at all? Well, part of it is cultural literacy--Greek myths are foundational to English-language literature in so many ways--and part of it is personal affection--I loved this book as a child. And I do think it's useful to teach kids how to read against the grain, as it were, and how to push back against a text. If, when my son, who is 4, gets older and finds one of my copies of Barrie's actual Peter Pan on my shelf and starts reading it, I won't snatch it away, but I will make sure to point out to him how racist the book is, and to make sure I give him texts that represent Native people respectfully and from a Native perspective. Obviously, this depends on the book and the kid in question, as well as the adult and what kind of time they have. But I think 4 is too young.
Thank you for writing what I've felt for some time on these books. As a bilingual teacher of first graders, I refused to read these books to my students. One library tech did during our library time. A couple moms leaned over to me, "Is it just me or is that racist?" They told me the book was offensive. I later tried to tell the tech this and she didn't get why there was a problem as it was a 'popular' book. Ugh.
ReplyDelete