Mary Weber joins us today to talk about her experiences with community as a child and how this is reflected in her view on diversity in YA literature.
Weber is the author of the Storm Siren Trilogy, which follows the story of Nym, a slave whose elemental power has been revealed and forged into a weapon for the kingdom. You can learn more about the series here.
You-pick veggies and bad-ass heroines: Why diversity in YA lit matters by Mary Weber
Riding in my grandfather’s car, I used to watch for the farm fields, knowing we’d get to stop and pick from the stalks of fresh green produce. To a kid in a financially struggling home, the idea of collecting such healthy goodness was an excitement, especially as the kind Japanese farmers would let him fill the car with them. “Those gentlemen are like family,” he’d say.
“Tell the story,” I’d ask from the back seat.
Because the true story was more interesting than the produce.
During World War II when the government forced our Japanese neighbors into internment camps, my great-grandparents and their families took it upon themselves to board up their Japanese friends’ homes to protect them from looters. They continued to guard those homes and their farms to keep the owners from financial ruin. And when their Japanese neighbors eventually returned? The friendship that had existed before the war was bonded for life.
Little did my great-grandparents or neighbors know that, years later, those farms of vegetables would contribute so heavily to our lives.
Driving along those green rows, listening to that story, was one of my earliest lessons on community — what it does and what it is, a diverse, beautiful, symbiotic system of people supporting each other, and a mutual giving to the common good.
That, more than anything, explains the way I feel about the Diversity in Young Adult Literature conversation.
Simply put, there isn’t nearly enough diversity in YA — both in the content of teen books and on the actual publishing/author side of the business. (In 2014, Publisher’s Weekly reported 90% of their Salary Survey respondents in the industry identified as white.) Are we working on it? Yes. Is there much further to go? Clearly, yes.
I’ll acknowledge I’m not any voice of authority in this discussion. I’m an author who has diverse characters in her books, but a very white girl on her cover. But I do have a passion regarding diversity and a host of young adults who either belong to me or with whom I work daily.
And I want them represented. All of them. In the stories they read that shape them, and in the careers they aspire to.
Some of the kids I work with are as white as the girl on my book. Some of them are black. Some are Hispanic. My own teens are a blend of Cherokee, European, and Spanish and Polish immigrants. Some of the kids I work with are differently-abled, as are a number of my family members. Some are LGBTQ. Some are underprivileged financially. Some feel guilty for having white privilege. So why am I excited when any of them find some part of themselves accurately represented in a book? Because it says to them, “We see you. We need you.” That, more than anything in a society that too often shoves airbrushed pics and ridiculous expectations and elitism down their throats, is what our kids and teens need to know. That they are valued.
I also want them to experience the beauty of other people and others’ cultures.
If you look at our teens’ Snapchat connections and across-the-globe friendships, they already know each other is out there. But what about in the books that help shape their worldview and offer hope regarding who a person can become? The human soul is a wondrous thing — with the different personal experiences and history contained therein, and the variety of insight and perspective it can offer. The humanity and rich traditions of a culture all lend to the creation of who we are, as individuals and as a community.
And, oh, how I want them to embrace community.
To find it, participate in it, and help create it. Community, more than anything throughout life, will challenge and grow them. It will hold them in their sorrows and struggles in ways that, as a mom and a mentor, I will never be able to. It will guide and help sustain them.
But in order to do that, they have to know what it is to be a true community. And we have to exemplify it.
Essentially, diversity must be in YA because diversity is who we are. It’s the equality of human beings contributing and caring for each other in a relationship. That’s what makes us a community. Heck, it’s what makes up life.
If our fictional and publishing communities (let alone personal ones) don’t include people other than those who look and believe and struggle just like us, we need a better community. We need a bigger community. One that reflects the real world.
Not only is it what we, as a human race, need in order to thrive, it’s what our readers need to know — that their value isn’t just talked about, it’s lifted up and protected.
And so it starts with us, you and me, expanding our personal worlds. Looking for those who are differently privileged, or have lesser opportunities, or who’ve borne the brunt of bullying or racism. And we cannot just wave a flag and stand up for them, but we need to listen to them and learn from them. And from us, it then expands to the arts and business world. Support and buy and vie for diverse books and diverse authors. Make room for those writers and career-seekers to succeed in a publishing system that doesn’t always reflect the reality it should.
It starts by truly loving each other as diverse YA “neighbors.”
Because community — true community — cares for its own, and for the future.
About the author
Mary Weber is the author of the young adult, award winning, Scholastic Book Club pick, Storm Siren, and the Storm Siren Trilogy. In her spare time, she feeds unicorns, sings ’80s hairband songs to her three muggle children, and ogles her husband, who looks strikingly like Wolverine. They live in California, which is perfect for stalking tacos, Joss Whedon, and the ocean.
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