Generation F

by Molly MacDermot

  But the book banning will probably not stop here. I expect Dear Martin by Nic Stone will be targeted next; after I read both this and T.H.U.G., the books have become one big story in my mind. It may be because they touch on similar problems. Either way, I’m waiting for Dear Martin to spark in popularity. I dare someone to try and hate on it.

  The History of Hating on Books Like The Hate U Give

  JAIME FULLER

  This piece jumps off from Diamond’s column on book banning to glimpse at a story that feels familiar once you read her piece. Sometimes it takes much longer than a moment, or two decades, for a lesson to take root.

  In 1998, a high school English teacher in Maryland was forced to defend teaching her students that the past is sometimes uncomfortable—and that the best voice to share that with ninth-graders might be one that sounds like their own. “It’s one thing to read about segregation from a history textbook, another to read it in a teenager’s young voice. It’s much more vivid.” Her school district had banned I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou, first from being taught at all, and then only in the ninth grade. One of the parents who complained told The Washington Post, “I kept waiting for her to realize all white people weren’t bad. The book ends, and I’m thinking, ‘Didn’t this woman ever realize that white people aren’t Neanderthals?’” The reaction does little but prove that the book, after all these years, still felt uncomfortable enough to provoke, perhaps the best argument teachers could ever hope to encounter for why it would be valuable to sit down with young readers and help them see the many shades of nuance in Angelou’s words before they, too, found their critical reading skills calcified by the world.

  The book topped most lists of banned novels of the ’90s. It kept getting banned. In 2006, an English teacher, in Wisconsin, again had to defend the book: “I felt as a teacher of the book that the students were mature enough to handle the concepts of the book and look beyond the images portrayed to a deeper meaning and the effects of what Angelou went through. What better place to discuss adversity than in a classroom setting?” Three years later, Angelou was asked about another attempt to ban her memoir: “I’m always sorry that people ban my books,” she said. “Many times I’ve been called the most banned. And many times my books are banned by people who never read two sentences. I feel sorry for the young person who never gets to read.” As Diamond says in her piece, “Banning these books from schools doesn’t make these issues disappear; it just gives students less room to understand them.”

  JADE LOZADA

  YEARS AS MENTEE: 1

  GRADE: Sophomore

  HIGH SCHOOL: High School of American Studies at Lehman College

  BORN: New York, NY

  LIVES: New York, NY

  PUBLICATIONS AND RECOGNITIONS: 2018 Scholastic Art & Writing Awards: Gold Key; Affinity Magazine

  MENTEE’S ANECDOTE: Over chia-seed muffins and skim-milk lattes, Carol has challenged me to give voice to the ideas in my head. We share more than a love of journalism and storytelling; we bond over the parallels between our generations. With her, I have not only improved my writing, but I have learned that the most pertinent words will not keep everyone comfortable, including myself. Carol has given me the opportunity to delve deeper than ever before into these ideas of race relations as I live them. Each piece with Carol is an analysis of myself, our world, and its future.

  CAROL HYMOWITZ

  YEARS AS MENTOR: 1

  OCCUPATION: Author and Journalist

  BORN: New York, NY

  LIVES: New York, NY

  PUBLICATIONS AND RECOGNITIONS: Fellow, Stanford Longevity Center; The Wall Street Journal; Bloomberg BusinessWeek

  MENTOR’S ANECDOTE: My weekly meetings with Jade have been deeply satisfying and fun, and I’m grateful to Girls Write Now for the chance to work with my mentee on her journalism, poetry, and other writing. Jade is teaching me so much about what it’s like to be a Latina teenager and high school student today, and I’m continually struck by her talent, wisdom, and diligence. When she shared her feelings about growing up in a neighborhood that has morphed from mostly Dominican to white—with bodegas converting to upscale coffee shops—I suddenly saw my community with new eyes.

  On Being America

  JADE LOZADA

  I wrote this piece as I considered the nature of my American identity in comparison with those of the more privileged people I have encountered throughout my life.

  “So, like, where are you from?”

  “New York.”

  “No, what are you?”

  “American.” I’m not sure why I say this. We both know what he’s trying to ask and there’s nothing wrong with it.

  “You know what I mean.”

  “My mom was born in the Dominican Republic, and my dad’s family is Puerto Rican.”

  “Oh, nice. I’m Korean.”

  “Cool.”

  Neither of us is ashamed, that is for sure. In fact, my ethnicity feels validated by explaining it to another person of color. There is a grossly understated appreciation for each other’s backgrounds that “cool” doesn’t reflect. And in speaking to my classmate, I wonder why this doesn’t hold true when I have this conversation with white people. I do not expect everyone to be able to distinguish between Puerto Rican and Dominican, but nevertheless my ethnicity is rarely understood. Does white America know what it means to belong to two cultures?

  Their heritage seems to exist exclusively in sepia photos from the last century and the knowledge of a few garbled and unrelated words of “their” language at best. Ancestors, I am often told, hailed from brisk Irish bluffs, hamlets in the snow-capped mountains of Germany, and picturesque Italian villages hugging the sea. Inevitably, some married the Eastern European Jews whom their parents had slandered and, somewhere down the bloodline, but not too far back, a single Frenchman perhaps joined the party. After all, who doesn’t want to be French?

  But this predictable laundry list of nationalities refers to the past, not the present. Our original “melting pot” has yielded homogeneous populations in which percentages do not matter because surnames no longer connect to roots. White people blend in with each other. They do not have to worry about being the “other.” They are not defined by who “came off the boat” because those are not the same people now making dinner. White people have the privilege of deciding who will know their background. And, as whites, that is when they seem to most fit under the umbrella of “American.”

  Perhaps I feel so reluctant to talk about my own culture with white people because explaining my skin makes me feel less “American.” This is my fallback, and that of many people of color. When America does not work for us, we refuse to be “American.” Suddenly, we are Latino, Asian, and black first, and we pretend that the country for which our ancestors toiled never meant anything in the first place. We are American with a hyphen, because, ultimately, the term was made for white people.

  It is difficult to love a country that does not always love you back. It is unfair that our few recorded ancestors lived at the outskirts of society and that we have to learn of them as a bloc relative to the exploits of white men. Their faces and stories are merged into a single PowerPoint slide defined by what they did not have. It is daunting not to know who you have lost. And when some of your civil rights are younger than your grandmother, it is infuriating to have them threatened.

  So why, then, would we deny ourselves the label “American,” for which our ancestors suffered, just because we are being denied the privileges attached? A group is most powerful when it embraces itself. Once not long ago, the ancestors of today’s white America were driven to the shores of the United States from Europe’s darkest corners, and they were not considered unquestionably American, either. Rather than acquiesce, they redefined the term “American.” People of color will only succeed today in our mission for social equality if we emulate our predecessors.

  Betting on Teens in the Trump Era

  CAROL HYMOWIT
Z

  This is a short essay I wrote about being American in today’s difficult political climate and what’s enabling me to stay optimistic. It was inspired by Jade’s piece on her views on being American.

  “There goes your president again,” says an Australian friend, after hearing Donald Trump advocate that the way to stop school shootings is to arm teachers. “What’s happening with Americans that got Trump elected?”

  It’s a question I’ve heard again and again from colleagues and friends around the world, and one that confounds and embarrasses me. In fact, proclaiming my nationality when I’m traveling overseas or among foreigners is something I avoid. Because the America I believe in—a place which, for all its historical injustices and failings, has always embraced the quest to become a better, more “perfect union”—isn’t the America I hear when my country’s president speaks or tweets.

  Elections? If they go against Trump, they’re “rigged.” Judicial review? If it’s not in his favor, it’s unfair or crooked. The press? Anything critical of him is “fake news.”

  I’m old enough to have lived through many dark political times. I was in high school when John F. Kennedy was assassinated and in college when student “Freedom Riders” risked and in some cases lost their lives fighting for voting rights for African Americans. Then came the assassinations of Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcom X, followed by riots in big cities and the trauma of Vietnam, during which young men I knew were wounded and killed in combat or went to jail because they opposed the war. Out of the antiwar and civil rights movements, the women’s liberation movement arose—disrupting workplaces as well as marriages as women sought equal footing in their professional and personal lives. And still later came the 9/11 terrorist attacks at the World Trade Center, which ushered in an era of global terrorism and devastating wars in the Middle East.

  Through all these upheavals, however, I never doubted that democratic institutions would prevail and that out of every struggle or tragedy would come at least a bit of progress and reinvention. Now the ideas and ideals that have long defined America, especially respect for the rule of law and honesty and decency in conduct toward others, are being threatened daily.

  Yet for all the distress I feel about Trump’s assaults on democratic principles, I’m increasingly optimistic. Americans, instead of passively accepting Trump’s beliefs and behavior or staying silent, are voicing their opposition. This political activism began the day after Trump took office with the Women’s March. I was buoyed when I joined this protest in January 2017 and again this year, and marched with my husband, stepson, and other men as well as millions of women. I was buoyed again when Americans from every region helped save Obamacare by relentlessly lobbying legislators.

  What makes me most hopeful is the surging activism among America’s youth. High school and college students have emerged as the leaders who are transforming the debate about two of the nation’s most pressing issues: gun control and immigration. Survivors of the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School shooting in Florida, within days of that tragedy, channeled their grief into fighting the gun lobby by giving impassioned speeches, meeting with lawmakers, and organizing the nationwide March for Our Lives. And young DREAMers are risking their personal residency status to fight for their right to citizenship.

  Just like the mentees at Girls Write Now, these teenagers are informed, articulate, and brave. I’m betting on them to create a better future, and I’ll be supporting and marching with them as they do.

  OUMOU LY

  YEARS AS MENTEE: 1

  GRADE: Senior

  HIGH SCHOOL: Urban Assembly Institute of Math and Science for Young Women

  BORN: New York, NY

  LIVES: Brooklyn, NY

  PUBLICATIONS AND RECOGNITIONS: Scholastic Art & Writing Awards: Silver Key

  MENTEE’S ANECDOTE: Stephanie and I both have very particular writing styles and opinions, so in our time together we have learned to listen and learn from each other. She’s pushed me to be a better writer in challenging my ideas, and now I’m way more open to criticism, which can be hard for any writer to face. Explaining myself and my views is now something I can look forward to.

  STEPHANIE GOLDEN

  YEARS AS MENTOR: 4

  OCCUPATION: Author, Journalist, Book Doctor

  BORN: Brooklyn, NY

  LIVES: Brooklyn, NY

  PUBLICATIONS AND RECOGNITIONS: “We Need the Singular ‘They,’” Aeon.co, 2018

  MENTOR’S ANECDOTE: This was our first year together, but since Oumou is a senior, we didn’t have a relaxed period of getting to know each other. Our relationship was forged in the heat of college essays—a lot of them. We plunged right in and worked hard all fall. I discovered that Oumou has a philosophical mind, and her essays are deep. She’s not just talented, but determined—a great combination for a writer. I’m so impressed by her willingness to think her ideas through and dive deep to bring up her own profound truths.

  A Stranger

  OUMOU LY

  “To be sane in a mad world is madness.” I resonate with this as a Muslim. My religion is what allows me to see through worldly illusion and still have purpose.

  I’m Muslim first before anything.

  I have Allah to thank for that.

  Alhamdulillah.

  I know myself but society doesn’t.

  My beliefs and I are strange to society,

  but society is actually strange to me.

  You see . . .

  There’s race—this thing defined by black or white,

  or funny enough by the land you come from if you don’t fit those two colors.

  ‘Something—ish’ . . . ‘something—ian’ . . . ‘something—ese,’

  for those who aren’t black or white.

  This thing called race, pits black against white in an uphill battle, involving the whole world, which almost seems to revolve around it . . .

  Then there’s ethnicity—which actually helps us to be familiar with one another as humans, and gives us culture . . .

  yet there’s this certain darkness of human nature that oozes in like poison and attacks our hearts.

  Because funny enough defiantly dividing ourselves by our own ethnicities and the cultures they produced just wasn’t enough.

  We had to go further . . .

  causing division even with those we supposedly identify with, bringing about high and low status, or tribes,

  and fair skin vs. skin that isn’t so,

  which presents itself in almost all things.

  And the fairer and richer are always more valued.

  Says who?

  Hate, jealousy, greed, disagreement and the angst that trails behind . . .

  It’s all on us—

  we are the human nature.

  So you see, race and ethnicity and all these other social constructs just don’t matter all that much to me,

  because they’re either made up or messed up.

  Time is money, money is time . . .

  Money makes the world go round.

  It’s so sad it’s funny, then sad again when you realize . . .

  How did we get here? . . .

  How did we make up these constructs?

  No—why did we—have to?

  Where do these things get you?

  I wanna know—really.

  You take nothing when you leave this place,

  So why get attached to it?

  Black vs. white,

  sexism,

  one person, one group, over another,

  any oppression . . .

  why feed into it?

  What—is—your—point?

  We’re all the same—in the same exam room.

  Placed onto Earth where the test is life.

  But I’ve seen for myself what the bad of human nature can do . . .

  In those stares that try to burn through the hijab that encapsulates me.

  The hijab that is more than a scarf that I wrap around—it covers my
being and soul, protecting me . . .

  in my look and talk and from any harm.

  And again I’ve seen for myself what human nature can do . . .

  In those stares that try to undermine the brown skin that is just another part of me, a black girl in hijab—but skin doesn’t define religion.

  My hijab is more—Islam is more.

  So never mind the stares and sly remarks and ignorance of some . . . never mind the fear.

  Those, they fear the truth . . .

  but they’ll never know it as long as they let all the bad of human nature take over them.

  And as for me,

  a stranger it is.

  I’m Muslim first before anything.

  Unfazed by those who class me with terrorism at the instant of their eyes meeting my hijab,

  and my skin with less worth at the instant of seeing its brownness.

  Unfazed by those who disregard other humans

  at the instant of seeing

  that they don’t meet the standards put forth by those who abuse the bad of human nature . . .

  the human nature that should tip more toward good on the scale, should it be what’s best for you.

  Those see me as strange,

  but we’re all the same.

  Because when we leave this place we take nothing.

  YOLO.

  No.

  You only live twice.

  There’s something better coming—

  Insha’Allah . . .

  It’s that eternal peace we all strive to achieve in everything we do, unknowing that we can only reach it after we leave this place.

  That can come to you.

  Proud to be a stranger in this ironically strange world.

  It isn’t home and things are just messed up—made up.

  I don’t know how everything has come to be so far gone, but I do know something.