demi > Recent Status Updates

How can you get the school to feel less transactional especially among Black students?

Schools need to be understood as a web. There’s curriculum, cross guards, transportation, school security, administration, community resources, family interactions, government/legislation (school, local, and federal), and even violence (school, local, national, global) that are all connected with how all people who enter a school interact with that school and it’s in-house community.

Working with children means you need to see all things through an intersectional perspective. Janice says that she asked interviewees for employment at her school-program for their definition of racism and their definition of excellence. If the two definitions were seen through an individualist lens, they were not called back to work with the students.

Black girls are either to achieve superhuman status via excelling in school and being really exceptional friends, or they are to be considered inhuman via “misbehaving” or “talking back”. There is no room for a Black girl to be human, period. There is no room for them to make a mistake or to forget something. They’re either on top of everything in their life, or they amount to nothing.

So successful children get to experience childhood? Did they get time to play outside with their other friends when they weren’t vigorously studying for their SAT exams or composing music?

Black girls’ success in systems not designed for their genuine success allows outsiders to say that these systems are working just fine, and that nothing needs to be changed, that other Black girls just need to work harder to reach those levels of success. However, these children were merely surviving those systems the best way they knew how.

Why is it important for schools to address the disciplinary actions taken towards Black girls? Are school personnel aware of how these actions harm educational and personal life outcomes? Who are the people that are part of these conversations, and does it actually include the authentic narratives of Black girls in that school?

“I would argue that education is ultimately a foundational element of the ability of the United States to prepare to meet its aspirational goal of being a ‘leader of the free world’. But until our learning is liberated, the nation will remain enslaved to antiquated ideologies and behaviors that undermine the possibility of justice”.

Schools cannot be labeled as “safe spaces”. They need to created as such, and this goes into concepts of classroom design, uniform monitoring, architecture, and “communal spaces” such as lunch rooms and gyms where students get to be “free” in comparison to classroom instruction. Black girls are expected to know that these spaces aren’t welcoming, thus forcing them to become adults at younger ages.

At the young age of six, she was worried of the yelling and screaming going on between her mom and dad. She worried about all the clutter in the house. She even managed to worry about the potential of her mother’s cancer coming back. We are able to sympathize with mom just a bit, as she continues to tell us that all she wants is the best for her only daughter. But that’s her interpretation, not Jeanette’s.

This book is very selective with their wording, and I believe Ruiz is trying to remain neutral on political stances. With that said, I feel like leftists are not going to necessarily enjoy this book to the fullest.

Evelyn is truly a voice for the other Puerto Rican children reading this book whose parents didn’t let them experience the world for themselves. However, as we get into the details, there is a time she describes her mother in a very rude and demeaning way. I understand that she was angry, but I don’t think we needed to see her body shame her mother.

This book is quite suggestive in my point of view. I’m understanding that Ruiz wants his readers to adopt these elements, but I think we really need to remember that what Ruiz is highlighting is foundational and it is up to us to personalize it. If doing our best is simply opening our eyes, we have to remember exactly that—that opening our eyes was our best for the given day. Overall, this is a book of reminders.

Reading this book is quite painful. I am able to envision everything Santiago is saying about each character and their movements and even goals. I see her grandparents knitting and coming home late from work. I see her mother making ends meet. Always adapting to her surroundings, while still trying to remain true to what she already knows, Negi is a character that every young woman can relate to.

Manzano has set the scene so well. Evelyn Serrano, born as Rosa Maria Evelyn de Carmen Serrano, is a Puerto Rican girl growing up in 1960s Harlem (with what seems to be around the area of 110th Street in Manhattan). She is going ready for work while managing the questions from her mother and the demands from her stepfather. They each have different desires for Evelyn, but Evelyn wants to be in control of herself.

I am understanding that there is a power connected with word. Referred to as “the Word”, what you say and/or believe about yourself and/or others is “the Word”, and it is “the Word” that serves as a spell, or a kind of manifestation that is with you for the rest of your life. This spell is an agreement you are making, and it can be good or bad. Either way, it is reflective of yourself as a human being.