Tuesday, April 1, 2008
Project Mulberry Thoughts
We recently read the book Project Mulberry by Linda Sue Park and I really enjoyed this book. There were many different aspects that were looked at, and I was waiting to see whether or not the person in our group writing their paper this week focused on the aspect of race in the book, and they didn't. There is an interesting aspect that I found in the book that dealt with racism from a minorities standpoint. In my opinion, when we think about racism, it is usually a white person who has a prejudice towards another person of race, religion, etc... However, we see racism in this case coming from Julia's mother. Her obvious uncomfortable state around Mr. Dixon who is allowing the children to use the leaves off of his mulberry tree. Julia can't believe this about her mother, but it is explained to us that as a child, in Korea, during the Korean war young children were witnesses of black soldiers, and so their only experiences with people of this race were negative. Especially since Julia's family lives in a very caucasian town, her mother is not used to a race differentiation. Julia tries to figure out how to explain to her mother that he is a nice man and that he is just helping them out, but her mother still does not trust him. A few chapters later, he is trying to be nice and send home peppers with Julia. He also calls her Chinese. I know that this is a stereotype that often occurs with Asian people, that they all get lumped together even though their cultures, traditions and religions are all quite different. Julia's character struggles through this throughout the novel, and in the end still can't decide how she feels about her mother's views. I thought it was good how Park had Julia's character struggle with these questions. I think that it is representative of children's views and questions about their parents views if they are growing up in a prejudiced household. I also like that Park did not answer the question at the end. Not only does it leave the reader questioning the text at the end of the novel, but it also leaves the reader questioning themselves.
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I was also surprised to see racism from a different perspective, meaning not from the majority. Typically, because I am white which allows me white privilege, I am used to seeing the majority use stereotypes and racist remarks, even though I don’t support this. It was not enjoyable to know that racism occurs in other situations but it was nice to see a text depicting racism occurring between minorities. As a practicing teacher who is soon moving to Chicago to teach I feel that a book like “Project Mulberry” is a text that students may connect to. It is very unfortunate but in diverse areas racism is a present tension that can be between all races. As Julia’s mother shows in the book all it takes sometimes, for someone to feel negative towards another race, is one personal experience. Mr. Dixon, like many people never personally wronged Julia’s mother but he still gets treated poorly and assumed to be a bad person just based on another person’s actions. It is unfair but people still act like this today. Ali brought up great points that only reassure me that this book might be a window for one of my students. I could see using this text to talk to students about racism and prejudices. I would even use it to show students that even people they love might have these feelings, but just like Julia it is ok to question or doubt their feelings or disagree with their loved one.
I agree with Ali’s comment that Park not answering this questioning of racism, pushes or allows the reader/student to question the text and themselves.
Great post Ali, it really got me thinking about this aspect of the book!
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