Before Dr. Seuss was famous, he drew racist political cartoons during the 1920s through the 1940s. Was Dr. Seuss himself a racist, or did he just draw these cartoon for a paycheck? He was a racist. Geisel himself was vocally anti-Japanese during the war and had no trouble with rounding up an entire population of…
After the brouhaha from Thoroughly Modern Millie, I feel like I am way more sensitive to racism and when I get asked “Where am I from?”, this video immediately comes to mind. So where am I from? Or where am I from … from?! I was born in Anaheim, California, not far from Disneyland. I grew…
Today I am on the front page of The Boston Globe for the past week of posts that I wrote on my microblog, I Love Newton, about the anti-Asian racism in the local high school musical, Thoroughly Modern Millie. School play’s stereotypes bring outcry and apology. “Millie” touches nerve in Newton by Ellen Ishkanian, Globe…
When I was nineteen-years-old, I went to my local hospital, the Long Beach Veterans Administration, and slid my resume with a cover letter under all the doors of the doctors in hopes of getting medical research experience as a volunteer. A doctor, Dr. Larry Parker, in the Endicronology department called me and put me on…
I’m in a bit of a Twitter war with McDonalds {my kids giggle as they read this}. You see, I’ve only recently found out they put Pink Slime in their hamburgers. While they have ceased this disgusting additive about a year and a half ago, my kids were eating McDonald’s hamburgers as part of their Happy…
Columbus Day is a school holiday but my kids only learned about why they [really] get the day off when they were in preschool. Why don’t they learn more in elementary school? Perhaps it’s because of the controversy over his “feat.” There are three main sources of controversy involving Columbus’s interactions with the indigenous people…
I am going to make a point of reading these banned and challenged books, if only to understand where on the continuum they belong in my children’s hands. How about you? How do you feel about banned or challenged books? Please comment!