The Shape of Things to Come
The America of today is a lost cause. Don't believe me? Then just watch the Trumpy Bear commercial.
Fortunately, what I saw this afternoon gave me hope for the future.
A day of making author visits to various classes at Park Tudor School concluded with a middle school genealogy group, about twenty kids who have been digging into their family histories. I was there to talk about the way I used my own family history in both Liberty Girl and The Eyes of the Enemy. They were impressed with what I had to tell them, and they liked the family artifacts I had to show them. But I was pretty impressed with them as well.
I don't know whether Park Tudor has been making a push for greater diversity or greater diversity is something that's just been happening naturally - maybe some of both. Whatever the reason, the group in front of me was a markedly richer mix than we had forty years ago. And yet, they were all running into similar obstacles in their research. A white boy and a Chinese girl both had problems tracking their families through the name changes they had gone through. Other students had to track their families through cultures that changed their family names each generation according to who they were the son of, whether those cultures were in Europe or Africa. Others had trouble tracing their families through a traumatic period of history, whether that period was the African slave trade, the India-Pakistan partition or the current war in Syria. They were different from each other, but they were also the same.
I've covered this topic before - The America that's to come isn't being built for people like you and me, who grew up in the 20th Century and are used to the kind of things that some people think will Make America Great Again. It's being built for people like these kids. It won't always be familiar to people like me. It won't always be comfortable for people like me. And yet, I love it. I say bring it on. In fact, I want to help it along. I want my writing to help equip those new generations to meet the challenges they'll face - especially since most of those challenges will involve cleaning up the mess we're leaving them.
The one downside to my experience today is that it left me feeling unsure of my ability to be much help. I try to write a diverse set of characters, and explore subjects that go beyond my own white privileged world - but what do I really know? Can I really talk about what the Jim Crow Baltimore setting of Liberty Girl was like? Can I really talk about the hardships caused by the Chinese Exclusion Act that I wrote about in Unswept Graves? I don't know. All I can do is the best I can, to keep my eyes and my mind open, and to find points of contact that aren't about being white or black or whatever, but are simply about being human, just like those kids tracing their families.
We all have our jobs to do and our roles to play in these times. Just those jobs, and nothing more. We don't have to do it all. Something tells me the coming generations will take care of plenty themselves.
Fortunately, what I saw this afternoon gave me hope for the future.
A day of making author visits to various classes at Park Tudor School concluded with a middle school genealogy group, about twenty kids who have been digging into their family histories. I was there to talk about the way I used my own family history in both Liberty Girl and The Eyes of the Enemy. They were impressed with what I had to tell them, and they liked the family artifacts I had to show them. But I was pretty impressed with them as well.
I don't know whether Park Tudor has been making a push for greater diversity or greater diversity is something that's just been happening naturally - maybe some of both. Whatever the reason, the group in front of me was a markedly richer mix than we had forty years ago. And yet, they were all running into similar obstacles in their research. A white boy and a Chinese girl both had problems tracking their families through the name changes they had gone through. Other students had to track their families through cultures that changed their family names each generation according to who they were the son of, whether those cultures were in Europe or Africa. Others had trouble tracing their families through a traumatic period of history, whether that period was the African slave trade, the India-Pakistan partition or the current war in Syria. They were different from each other, but they were also the same.
I've covered this topic before - The America that's to come isn't being built for people like you and me, who grew up in the 20th Century and are used to the kind of things that some people think will Make America Great Again. It's being built for people like these kids. It won't always be familiar to people like me. It won't always be comfortable for people like me. And yet, I love it. I say bring it on. In fact, I want to help it along. I want my writing to help equip those new generations to meet the challenges they'll face - especially since most of those challenges will involve cleaning up the mess we're leaving them.
The one downside to my experience today is that it left me feeling unsure of my ability to be much help. I try to write a diverse set of characters, and explore subjects that go beyond my own white privileged world - but what do I really know? Can I really talk about what the Jim Crow Baltimore setting of Liberty Girl was like? Can I really talk about the hardships caused by the Chinese Exclusion Act that I wrote about in Unswept Graves? I don't know. All I can do is the best I can, to keep my eyes and my mind open, and to find points of contact that aren't about being white or black or whatever, but are simply about being human, just like those kids tracing their families.
We all have our jobs to do and our roles to play in these times. Just those jobs, and nothing more. We don't have to do it all. Something tells me the coming generations will take care of plenty themselves.
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