The best way to teach kids about diversity and inclusion is through reading

I’m half Hispanic and half white, and grew up straddling two different cultures. I knew diversity existed in the world because I lived it. Saturdays eating pupusas and dancing to bachata music blaring from speakers in my tío’s backyard, and Sundays with my grandmother running through the park and having lunch at McDonald’s. I benefited from having exposure to two unique worlds. But when I got to Duke University, I realized how limited my actual world had been.

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I grew up working class, where I helped my parents in their pizzeria from age eight. We were never without food or shelter, so I thought we were wealthy. But in college, I met people so removed from myself financially, people who had never worked a day of physical labor in their lives. I also met people of many different ethnic, religious and cultural backgrounds—and was exposed to the LGBTQ community for the first time.

I loved every moment of college, but I felt like a bumpkin. It shouldn’t have taken me eighteen years to understand how diverse our country and world was. 

I don’t want that for my children. I want them to know and appreciate the world around them. The best way I can give that to them is through reading. Books provide us a glimpse into other people’s lives. Books help us build empathy. Whether through fiction or non-fiction, reading widely helped me learn about our country’s history, and provided me a window into the lives of so many souls.

As an author, I know it’s hard for marginalized writers to get published, so their stories are often not told. So many books present a homogenous view of the world. I want to elevate those who break through the barrier, and I want my children to look for those stories. Through reading is how we can go about teaching diversity and inclusion to kids.

We go to the book store frequently. But on a trip this summer, after staring at the rows of “Captain Underpants” and the “Diary of a Wimpy Kid” series books on my kids’ shelves, both written by white men, I told them I wanted them to pick out books by diverse authors. 

My oldest son, an avid reader, threw a fit. He had a specific book he wanted by Rick Riordan and he did not want to relent. He asked, “Why do we have to read diverse authors? Why does it matter?” The question took me aback.

Didn’t he realize it was important to understand that not everyone looked like him? And that not everyone has two parents who went to college and provided a loving home? But then I realized that he’s a child and it’s my job to teach him that.

“My abuelita was Hispanic. Your grandfather was Hispanic. Their stories are just as important as anyone else’s, and I want you to read with characters from their backgrounds and other backgrounds different from ours. You won’t understand what other people deal with if you aren’t exposed to it. You won’t understand what I dealt with,” I told him.

“Rick Riordan’s books all have diverse characters. LGBTQ characters. Blind and deaf characters. He always writes to be inclusive,” he responded. I remembered him telling me this before, and it did make me happy. But I don’t want my kids to only read books that make identity a focal point or source of trauma of the story.

In the real world, diverse people live everyday lives. So while I appreciate authors like Rick Riordan writing to be inclusive, I also want my kids to read from actual marginalized writers.

He ended up picking “Merci Suárez Changes Gears” by Meg Medina. My other son grabbed a book by Dusti Bowling called “Insignificant Events in the Life of a Cactus,” where the main character is thirteen and born without arms. My son lives with type 1 diabetes, and I loved that he grabbed a story with a main character who has a disability. 

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The next time we went, he grabbed “Measuring Up” by Lily LaMotte and Ann Xu, which features a Taiwanese main character trying to fit in at her new Seattle school. And my other son nabbed “Lotería” by Karla Arenas Valenti, which features both a Latina author and main character and centers around a game we play as a family.

My children also love the “Who Was?” series, where they can read about so many different people of various backgrounds, including pioneering women. I loved that on Martin Luther King Day my son knew about him and our country’s struggle with civil rights. I loved that he knew about Stonewall and the Holocaust because he read about them in a book, or that he pointed out to me that his “Wings of Fire” book series was written by Venezuelan author Tui T. Sutherland.

I live in a state where the government is actively trying to restrict books made available for children to read, but I’m not going to be shamed for wanting my kids to read widely. My desire for them to have exposure to different authors and characters isn’t political, but rather to make them well-rounded individuals. I have also done this for myself, making sure that especially during Hispanic Heritage and Black History Month, I read authors from those backgrounds.

This year, I will make my kids do it along with me. Despite my efforts to introduce diverse authors, the majority of everything my children read still contains primarily white, middle/upper class characters—and unicorns (my daughter loves unicorn books).

My kids relate to Greg Heffley because his life is similar to theirs. They need those stories too, but I don’t want them thinking those are the only stories out there or the only stories worth reading. I want them to paint their canvas broadly in all the colors of the world. And I want to elevate the voices of people whose stories might not otherwise be heard.

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