JOURNAL ENTRY
Smith, Rodney D.
JOURNAL ENTRY Rodney D. Smith All Brown All Around Consuella Lopez is a student in my ninth-grade English class. She is a gangbanger. Every day she struts into my class wearing baggy jeans and...
...Normally, I'm the one who pleads with my students to read and finish a book...
...After a character died, some of my Latino and Filipino students explained to the rest of the class what the Day of the Dead meant to them...
...From her ears, large silver hoop earrings dangle...
...That is how it goes and goes...
...The book tells the story of a twelve-year-old Latina girl coming of age in Chicago...
...When I read Spanish terms, including the word that made most of my Latino students giggle, mamasota, the students helped me define and pronounce them correctly...
...I know nothing about Catholic school, but a few of my Latino students, including Consuella, added their experiences to what the main character describes...
...And my favorite part that she wrote was, 'All brown all around.' I don't know why, but that just got to me...
...Let's keep on reading...
...Ya know...
...And that is the truth...
...I'm an Anglo, born in Wisconsin, teaching in a California school where Asians, African Americans, Pacific Islanders, and Latinos together make up the majority of the students...
...Sometimes I think back when we read this book and picture me being the main character...
...I know virtually nothing about homegirls or gangbangers or the fierce pride that burns within this Latina girl...
...Hey, Mr...
...While teaching The House on Mango Street, I often rely on some of my Latino students for clarification...
...Before adding this book to my school's English curriculum, my colleagues and I had to overcome criticism of multicultural-ism from parents, school-board members, and fellow teachers...
...The House on Mango Street rises above such arguments...
...Thick black eyeliner surrounds her brown eyes, and dark burgundy lipstick covers her mouth...
...Consuella began to attend class regularly after we read and discussed the chapter entitled "Those Who Don't...
...It is like, here is this Latina girl writing a book that I really like...
...Smith," she says...
...Consuella's life, like those of so many of my students, differs radically from my own...
...Ak gangbanger makes a discovery in English class...
...The book's use of voice, theme, and symbolism, as well as the honesty and clarity of the writing, rivals the best novels I have ever taught...
...Like I was kickin' it with my homeys...
...This chapter includes the lines, "Those who don't know any better come into our neighborhood scared . . . But we aren't afraid . . . All brown all around, we are safe...
...Every day she struts into my class wearing baggy jeans and an oversized flannel shirt in her gang's color, black...
...Yeah...
...But watch us drive into a neighborhood of another color and our knees go shakety-shake...
...And yet, until this year, I have taught the exact same books I read when I attended my predominantly white high school: The Great Gatsby, Huckleberry Finn, Death of a Salesman, To Kill a Mockingbird...
...In a journal entry she handed in late, Consuella, the girl with the number thirteen tattooed in black numerals between her right thumb and forefinger, had this to say about the book: "My favorite chapter in The House on Mango Street is 'Hips.' The reason why is because when I was little I used to jump rope with my friends and make up weird songs to jump to...
...Wouldn't this affirmative-action program in English class come at the expense of great literature...
...I don't...
...This year, for the first time, I am teaching Sandra Cisneros's The House on Mango Street...
...While taking roll, I easily spy the three-inch-high wall of hair that rises defiantly from her forehead as she slouches in the back row...
...What multicultural author, whatever his or her race, sexual orientation, or gender, could match the works of F. Scott Fitzgerald, Mark Twain, or William Shakespeare...
...Whenever I'd stop reading to begin a lesson, Consuella pleaded, "Don't stop...
...Were we instituting multicultural texts for the sake of multicul-turalism, regardless of literary merit...
...After filling out her detention slip—this quarter she's been tardy five times and suspended once for being disrespectful to another teacher—I ask about her weekend...
...Rodney D. Smith is a teacher and freelance writer in Piedmont, California...
...I never have gotten into a book like I do now...
Vol. 59 • July 1995 • No. 7
