| August 30, 2006
Author: vaz
AUCTIONS
Feary 1
Feary 2
Faery 3
faery 4
Open mic rant night
Article originally appeared in Sunday, august 27th, 2006 edition of antelope valley press. In the daily showcase section. Reprinted with her permission.
Valley Life Editor: Kim Rawley
Banning Cubans, wizards
What do a boy wizard and little Cuban children have in common?
They have both incited school boards who think you’re too lazy, too stupid and/or too ineffectual a parent to control what your child reads.
Banned Books Week, normally the last week of September, came early this year in Miami and Lake Los Angeles.
In a story getting worldwide play out of Miami, the Miami-Dade school board has decided to fight a federal judge’s ruling that stopped them from removing “Vamos a Cuba,” a picture book for 5-7 year olds, from their schools.
To the tune of a half-million dollars.
Just think about what a school district could do with $500,000 tutoring, textbooks, maybe even a field trip or two. But no, they’re going to spend that much money to placate some very vocal Cuban expatriates who are mad that a book for kindergartners doesn’t include explanations about what an SOB Castro is.
“Vamos a Cuba” is one of a series of books about countries around the world with lots of pictures and a look at daily life.
The most offending passage in the book? “People in Cuba eat, work, and go to school like you do.”
Wow, that is offensive.
Imagine telling a child that although they speak different languages and have unfamiliar customs, kids in other countries are basically the same as they are.
According to Juan Amador, whose 9-year-old brought the book home, and who is the pointman on this ridiculousness, that line is a denial of the harshness of Cuban life under Fidel Castro. He says that rationing means that kids over the age of 6 don’t get milk and there are food shortages.
But do kindergarten through third-grade kids really need to know about that? We have American children who are homeless, living on the street, going to bed hungry, enduring sexual abuse, and dodging gang-banger drive-by bullets.
We don’t include that in children’s books. What would be the point? We know America has problems all countries do. Why not allow kids to be kids? At least for the first half of elementary school.
If Amador wants to explain rationing, torture, and indoctrination to his school-age daughter, he should feel free. I’m assuming that’s why he risked his life to come here, freedom.
But then again, maybe he just wanted to improve his standard of living; because frankly, pulling a book off library shelves is what his despised Fidel would do. Maybe Amador believes in freedom only for himself.
It’s become a political issue now Miami-Dade school board members up for re-election have been put on notice that the Cuban emigre community will mobilize to defeat them if they don’t support the ban.
Here at home, we have a school board in Lake Los Angeles who also thinks that folks are too stupid to regulate their children’s reading.
Not only do they not want their children reading Harry Potter and Artemis Fowl books, they don’t think that your children should, either.
By the way, I would be surprised if many of the Wilsona School District trustees ever had children in the district, let alone currently.
If Harry Potter offends you and you don’t want your child to read it, then explain that if the child brings it home.
It’s what they call a “teachable moment.”
Let them know why your family chooses not to read those particular books.
But let’s not let people with their own narrow political and religious agendas hold books hostage that have already been approved by a book selection committee made up of parents, teachers and community members.
Kim Rawley is a resident of the Antelope Valley, Valley life editor of the AV press, an intelligent, professional and all around great gal. Just don’t tell her I said the last part or she’ll eat my kidneys
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