Research Proposal

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As a Hispanic girl raised in South Carolina who loves reading, I wanted to do my research on The lack of diversity in young adult literature. There is nothing like picking up a book and relating to the character in it. The stories that are popular are great reads, Harry Potter, Hunger Games, Twilight, Speak, but these stories, characters are not who I am. I would love to see a hispanic Katniss dominating and being the hero versus the hispanic girl that acts like a chola and drops out of high school (the regular cliche one reads and sees in books and movies). Some books that are great reads for minorities are some that we have read in class:
                  - The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian
                 - The House on Mango Street
                 -Esperanza Rising
The following questions, are some that I will be using to grow awareness through my research:
1) Are authors aiming to sell for money or actually sell to influence YA through their books?
2) Is there not an audience and a demand for minority YA literature?
3) Why are minorities misrepresented in many YA literature? Avoid Stereotypes?
4) What are some factors that an author looks at when creating the ethnicity of the main character.
5) We live in a diverse world so why not read about a diverse world?

I know that when talking about race and diverse it might be touchy for some people. I feel strong about this because reading The House on Mango Street made me feel like I had a connection with the book. As a future educator to a diverse generation I would love for each of my students to find themselves represented in a book. Having a diverse selection of book can help a lot with a generation that is full of reluctant readers. I will be using The House on Mango Street and The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian to help with some of my paper. I will also look at articles and journals from the library catalog to help me back up my research.

Comments

  1. UnknownNovember 27, 2017 at 8:14 AM

    I can completely agree with you that there is an evident lack of minorities in the YA literature field! My topic is eerily similar to yours in that sense. I might suggest that you look into racism within writers/publishers, something that is unseen by the eyes of the reader, but happens to many minority writers. You have a great list of questions to base your research upon and I cannot wait to see your presentation and compare it to my own!

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