Freedom For The Future (Understanding Difficulties and Rights)

My girlfriend's son had to read this for school the other day, and this fit right in to our discussion about folklore being rewritten to Americanized standards.  With this Native American legend, there is no whitewashing done by Richard Vaughan.  There is no different ending to entice the readers.  There is no different structure because he felt the Native Americans didn't tell it well enough.  All he did was retell this legend and added illustrations so that children could visualize the legend themselves.  I believe it is very important to keep folklore from other cultures protected; in that it isn't restructured or rewritten.  These stories helped build cultures that still exist today and that should be discoverable by any child or human.

In this children's book, the protagonist, Sylvia, tries to get into a better school than the one she's in now.  The time period is set during the early Civil Rights Movement before Brown v Board of Education happened.  In the West Coast there was segregation of schools as well, but not just for Black students, but Mexican students and other children of color too. Sylvia's family lived close to a white school, but the children couldn't go there because they were not white.  They received worse education and worse treatment just because of their skin color.  Their cousins, who were Mexican but happened to look white, were able to go to the white school.  So obviously there was something wrong here.  With the help of lawyers, other people of color and time, Sylvia's family was finally able to de-segregate some schools in California.  This was a huge win, but it proved the toughness it takes to actually get the basic necessities that every citizen deserv...