Cultures of American Childhood

Please match the text name with the appropriate quotation from that text.

“Because he’s one of those people who has to believe that white people are better than black people to make himself feel big. … For him to believe that he is better than we are makes him think that he’s important, simply because he’s white.”

“But they will only hire Mexicans to lay track and dig ditches, not as mechanics. I’ve decided to work in the fields until I can convince someone to give me a chance.”

“At first the rain had merely splotched the dust, which seemed to be rejoicing in its own resiliency and laughing at the heavy drops thudding against it; but eventually the dust was forced to surrender to the mastery of the rain….”

“Don’t worry. I will take care of everything. I will be la patrona for the family now.”

“Oh, all right. All right. So maybe what if I did say somethin’ ‘bout Miz Logan? … Anyway, I’m real sorry ‘bout your mama losin’ her job and—”

“Tovah, I think maybe you were wrong after all. You said a girl must not depend on her looks, that it is better to be clever. But in America looks are more important, and if it is my looks I must rely on, I am to be sent back. How can this be?”

“‘Your daddy know you here?’ … ‘N-no sir, I reckon not.’ ‘Then I expect you’d better be getting on home, son, ‘fore he come looking for you.’”

“‘America… What will you do there?’ ‘I will do everything there,’ I answered.”

A.

Letters from Rifka

B.

Esperanza Rising

C.

Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry

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4 points

Question 2
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In completing this second matching exercise, please note that the word “text” can be used to refer to written texts as well as to filmic texts 🙂

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“Declaration of the Rights of the Child”

“It’s That It Hurts”

“Civil Rights for Kids”

Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry

“Formation”

A.

A text that bluntly indicates how bad bullying in U.S. schools historically was for some children whose families were in the commercial farming industry

B.

A text that not only draws attention to contemporary abuses of power and of African American children’s rights by white adults but also powerfully represents African American children engaged in acts of protest and resistance against this abuse

C.

A text that demonstrates the need for novels like Mildred Taylor’s, which do not neglect the subject of children’s role in paving the way for the Civil Rights Movement

D.

A text that includes some problematic elements (such as an overly vague definition of “adequate” living conditions for children) but that nevertheless helps make it possible to pinpoint abuses of children’s rights by providing a preliminary interpretation of what children are entitled to

E.

A text that features an empowered first-person protagonist whose very ability to tell her own story constitutes an act of protest

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5 points

Question 3
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Hesse enhances Letters from Rifka’s representation of real issues facing child refugees in the United States by

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Basing her novel on the true experiences of her great-aunt, who was a child refugee herself

Depicting historical refugee experiences that are similar (though not identical) to the challenges facing some of today’s child refugees who hope to enter the U.S.

Both

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0.5 points

Question 4
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An example of a student interpreting Letters from Rifka as a “window text” might be

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A student identifying with Rifka because she has lost her hair due to chemotherapy treatments

A U.S.-born student beginning to better understand the challenges of children who are recent U.S. immigrants after reading Letters from Rifka

Both

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0.5 points

Question 5
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In Letters from Rifka, we learn that Rifka experiences or has previously experienced discrimination or other disadvantages on the basis of

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Her health status and her gender only

Her health status, her gender, and her religion

Her health status, her gender, her religion, her nationality, and her socioeconomic status

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0.5 points

Question 6
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In reading and analyzing Letters from Rifka, we used ideals of childhood brainstormed by our class as a lens through which to examine the text. We used a similar approach in our next unit on Muñoz Ryan’s text and the history it represents; what “lens” did we primarily use in that case?

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The same lens: ideals of childhood brainstormed by our class

A different lens: the rights of children as declared by the international community

A different lens: facts about child activism neglected by some historical sources on that period