Meltingpot Food for Thought: American Dirt, Being Asian in America, Coded Bias

Hello Meltingpot Community,

You know I’m always scouring the media for meltingpot stories that I think you might want to read. Stories that provide valuable information or inspiration for folks who live a multicultural lifestyle. Folks like you, dear readers. And here’s what I have for you this week.

Five Meltingpot Stories for Information and Inspiration

Asian and Invisible:

Novelist Charles Yu penned this heartfelt essay titled, What It’s Like to Never Ever See Yourself on TV for Time.com. He writes about growing up Asian American, never seeing people that looked like him on TV and now watching his own children experience the same thing. It’s not just a woe-is-me essay though, it’s a call to action to the entertainment industry to recognize that representation does actually matter. Seriously, we have to do better. If you enjoyed the essay and want to read more from Yu, check out his brand new novel, Interior Chinatown.

Easy Hacks for Parents Raising Bilingual Kids:

I wrote a piece for Multicultural Kids Blogs about some easy ways to help in your efforts to raise bilingual kids. Sometimes it feels impossible in a monolingual America to find the resources you need, so hopefully the ideas I share will help.

American Dirt Gets Cancelled:

This just in, the nationwide tour for the new novel, American Dirt has been cancelled by the publisher. In case you haven’t been following the controversy caused by this book, here it is in a nutshell. American Dirt is a new novel about a Mexican woman and her son fleeing to the United States after her husband is killed. Latino authors and activists have criticized the book for being stereotypical and poorly written. They are criticizing the publishing industry for pouring so much money and resources into a book about Mexican people that was written by a white woman, when Latino authors have to ride the struggle bus just to get their books looked at by mainstream publishers. Cries of cultural appropriation, racism and whitewashing are all part of the conversation. Also, Oprah endorsed the book, selecting it for her bookclub and that just made people extra mad. It will be interesting to see how this situation gets resolved, if it does.

There’s a New Movie about Racist Technology:

If you’ve been a faithful listener of the My American Meltingpot podcast, then you already know racist technology is a real thing, thanks to my incredible guest from episode #2, Meredith Broussard. Well, thankfully, Meredith isn’t the only one sounding the alarm about the racism and bias baked into our technology, although she is on the forefront of the activism in this arena. Now there is a new documentary called Coded Bias that dives deep into uncovering the entrenched racism and bias in our technology. The film just premiered at Sundance and is already getting great reviews.

Family Reunion is (Multicultural) Family Friendly:

I’m not a huge TV fan, mostly because I don’t have time to watch a lot of TV. But I do like to watch shows with babygirl and I prefer to watch family comedies where the families look somewhat like ours. We stumbled upon Netflix’s new Family Reunion and we LOVE it. The basic story line is that a family goes to visit grandma and grandpa down south, they love it so much, they decide to leave their home in Seattle and move in with the in-laws. The family is Black, but the mom, played by Tia Mowry is mixed race and they speak openly about her being mixed race and it comes up in conversations about skin color and hair texture in very real ways. It’s a typical 30-minute sitcom, but you can tell they are trying to explore some serious issues. My favorite episode was when they explored religious diversity and actually spent a lot of time talking about the Bahai Faith. It was quite surprising, in a good way. If you’re looking for a fun family show to watch, check it out.

Let me know if you have any meltingpot stories to share. I’d love to know about them.

Peace!