Episode #151: The Baker Diversity Lecture and APALA rubric with Sarah Park Dahlen
Grace and Alvina welcome special guest Sarah Park Dahlen to discuss her Baker Diversity Lecture on the depiction of Asian characters and eyes in children's books, as well as the APALA rubric to evaluate Asian American children's books.
Sarah Park Dahlen joined the School of Information Sciences at the University of Illinois as an associate professor in August 2021. She previously served as an associate professor of library and information science at St. Catherine University in St. Paul, Minnesota. Dahlen's research addresses Korean adoption in children’s literature, Frank Carpenter and Frances Carpenter’s writings for children, and diversity in children's literature and library education.
She is cofounder of the scholarly journal Research on Diversity in Youth Literature, with Gabrielle Atwood Halko; coeditor of Diversity in Youth Literature: Opening Doors Through Reading (2013), with Jamie Campbell Naidoo; and co-creator of the 2015 and 2018 Diversity in Children's Books Infographics, with David Huyck, which are based on data from the Cooperative Children's Book Center at the School of Education, University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Her honors include the Leadership Award from the iSchool's Alumni Association (2016), Faculty Teaching and Advising Award from St. Catherine University (2021), and the Mentoring Award from the Children's Literature Association (2021). She has served on several children's book award committees and curates the youth literature programming at the Asian American Literature Festival hosted by the Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center and the Library of Congress. She holds an MS and PhD in library and information science from the University of Illinois and a BA and MA in Asian American Studies from UCLA.
How have you been?
Sarah has been busy getting used to her new position as associate professor, co-writing a book on Asian American youth literature, and writing her first picture book! Grace is getting ready to co-host an Asian American writer’s retreat at the Highlights Foundation along with author Debbie Michiko Florence. She’s been busy doing school visits and traveling again is beginning to intimidate her a bit after all events being virtual for so long. Alvina just returned from Kindling Words, her first in-person retreat since the pandemic began.
Baker Diversity Lecture
Grace and Alvina ask Sarah to talk about how her Augusta Baker Diversity lecture came to be, why she wanted to research slant eye discourse and the way that Asian Americans are depicted in children’s books. She was inspired after reading Becoming Yellow: A Short History of Racial Thinking by Michael Keevak. Sarah talks about how she got involved with APALA and creating a rubric for evaluating Asian American and Pacific Islander youth literature.
Sarah’s committee took notes from looking at the Hijabi Librarians rubric shortly after they came up with a checklist for Muslim literature.
Grace and Alvina ask Sarah, “What is one take-away from all of your work that you would like listeners to have?”
I strongly believe that more people need to learn about the history of slant eye discourse and we really think that something like the APALA rubric was needed. There is more to Asian American language than the 5 F’s: food, fashion, folklore, festivals, and famous people.
You can view the Spring 2022 lecture here:
Grace asks Sarah about what she would say to those that are trying to take back some of these kind of stereotypes that have already been published. Sarah talks about narrative plenitude vs. narrative scarcity. See this article about the movie “Crazy Rich Asians”.
The Book Friends and Sarah continue to discuss book banning, the depiction of transracial adoption in children's books and Korean adoptees.
Fortune Cookie Segment: Asian American media sources that you recommend
Sarah: Adapted Podcast, The Janchi Show, and Tiger Boom board books.
Alvina: Nancy Podcast, TaiwaneseAmerican.org, An Arrow to the Moon, Emily X.R. Pan’s new book.
Grace: Edit Your Life podcast, Grace as a guest on Ditto Kids Magazine
Gratefuls:
Sarah is grateful for the AAPI community, Alvina is grateful for community as well having just returned from Kindling Words. She is also grateful for her assistant who was recently promoted to Associate Editor, and for all of those celebrating Ramadan. Grace is grateful for the lily’s that her husband gave to her for her studio.
Other books and media mentioned:
Thank You!
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