Insiders, outsiders, and the question of authenticity: who shall write for African American children?

African American Review, Spring, 1998 by Nina Mikkelsen

This romance was sketched out during a residence of considerable length in Italy, and has been rewritten and prepared for the press in England. The author proposed to himself merely to write a fanciful story, evolving a thoughtful moral, and did not purpose attempting a portraiture of Italian manners and character. He has lived too long abroad not to be aware that a foreigner seldom acquires that knowledge of a country, at once flexible and profound, which may justify him in endeavoring to idealize its traits. Italy, as the site of his romance, was chiefly valuable to him as affording a sort of poetic or fairy precinct.... (Nathaniel Hawthorne, Preface to The Marble Faun vi)

My themes are universal. And because the black people are the people I know, and the part of the group that I am, that is my center, so to speak, so my characters are black. Most of the time.... But it's very difficult when you're a black writer to write outside of the black experience. People don't allow it; critics won't allow it. If I would do a book that didn't have blacks, people would say, "Oh, what is Virginia Hamilton doing?" Yet a white writer can write about anything. (Virginia Hamilton, qtd. in Rochman 1021)

This is a popular Japanese folktale and tells the story of a devoted pair of wild ducks. The illustrations in this beautiful book are subtle and suggestive but also an education in the dress, hairstyles, hierarchical levels of society, homes, customs and, not least, in eighteenth-century Japanese art. (I have been told that there are "inaccuracies" in the representations; the cummerbunds of the ladies are the wrong width and the upper-class ladies sport the hair styles of courtesans. And the Japanese never wear shoes in the house. This doesn't lessen my bonding with this book and, indeed, makes me want to find out more.) (Judith Graham [commenting on The Tale of the Mandarin Ducks, retold by Katherine Paterson and illustrated by Leo and Diane Dillon] 24)

One central concern of scholars, literary historians, and critics these days is the matter of authenticity, especially the authenticity of cross-cultural and multicultural stories, and the ensuing conflict or question, Who will produce the literature of parallel cultures? An author of the character's own particular culture - or anyone? And for those who feel it doesn't matter (that anyone who can tell a good story should do so), we must ask, What makes a story good? Replicating reality to the fullest? Getting the facts and feelings right? Suppressing or distorting reality to make us think and feel differently? (Giving us new images to think with - and about?) But good for whom? Writers who want or need freedom of expression? Publishers who want the story to sell? Readers who want to find themselves in a book? Readers who want to find others in a book?

And which readers? Those closest to the author's own reality? Or those with different background experiences? Can a really story be good if it does not derive its material from the traditions (the memories, beliefs, preoccupations, and concerns) of an author whose cultural origins are shared by those of the story's characters? Jane Austen, with her concern for social realism, did not think so. And the remark she made about "the little bit (two inches wide) of ivory on which I work with so fine a brush" (qtd. in Tanner 1) has now become legendary. Nathaniel Hawthorne agreed in principle, and that is why he decided to make his story The Marble Faun, set in Italy, a fantasy and why he took great pains to sidestep a realistic portrait of his Italian characters. Virginia Hamilton protests the fact that she does not have the liberty of white authors, who either ignore Austen's advice or follow Hawthorne's example.

The question then arises, should Austen's advice be followed? What is the worst that can happen if it is not? Could the belief system of Austen's English niece have seeped into the words, thoughts, and behaviors of her Irish characters, usurping the traditions of the Irish culture being depicted? Could her story have been a really good one if this had happened? Judith Graham says yes, if readers become bonded with the book.

But what about the insiders of the culture being inaccurately presented who are made to feel demeaned, especially when these insiders are children just coming to grips with issues of identity, heritage, and self-esteem? Do we really want children - insiders or outsiders - bonding with inauthentic books? And what happens when they are left to do so? Consider Alice Walker, who tells how she felt about the Disney film in which Uncle Remus "saw fit largely to ignore his own children and grandchildren in order to pass on our heritage - indeed, our birthright - to patronizing white children" (31).

And what about children who are outsiders of the culture being mistakenly presented and are misled to feel that all belief systems are identical to their own; that all people's feelings, perceptions, propensities are the same as theirs - or that theirs is the one that counts? Consider the many adults who have read and loved Frances Hodgson Burnett's The Secret Garden (1911), but never noticed that Mary calls Martha "the daughter of a pig" because Martha had expected Mary to be a native of India, rather than "respectable white people." Then consider the main character of Mitali Perkins's The Sunita Experiment (1993), who does notice, as Perkins herself, growing up Indian-American in California, apparently did.