America, My Love, America, My Heart
By Daria Peoples
Like many children of color, I experienced racism and biases at school. Back then, I didn’t know the words to describe how I was treated, but I do remember feeling as though my classmates and my teachers liked one another more than they liked me. As a visiting author in many schools across the country, I often see versions of myself sitting in desks and walking down hallways.
When I made America, My Love, America, My Heart, I wanted to create a book that humanized the perspective of Black and Brown children after they encountered racism or a bias or an act of exclusion based on their differences.
I remembered being called the n-word at six years old. I remembered how I felt, how I had to renegotiate a world I thought loved me. Everything changed, and my six-year-old self had a lot of unanswered questions.
Even in first grade, I wondered if I was treated differently because my family was Black and theirs weren’t. Or because my family was different from other families in my community. My grandmother and great grandmother spoke a different language. We ate foods others didn't eat. Unfortunately, I often changed who I was to fit in. I also pretended that the way I was treated didn’t bother me. But it did. It broke my heart.
As the only Brown girl in most of my classes, I didn’t feel free to be myself in my school, in my classroom, or with my teachers and classmates. My country, America, didn’t feel free to me.
Slowly, but surely, in my elementary years, I began to erase or hide parts of me that weren’t celebrated by my teachers and my classmates. I began to disappear, and I didn’t find myself again until I was a young adult.
I never want children to make the same mistake as me, and feel like they have to change any part of who they are to fit in with people who don’t love all of who they are. Those people are the ones who need to change. It is not wrong to be you.
This picture book is a catalyst for conversations.
I hope children and adults of color feel protected and empowered when they read it, as if the words themselves came directly from their hearts. I also hope the children and adults on the other side of these experiences, the offenders and bystanders, reflect upon the impact of their actions, the harm it causes, and their individual responsibility to rectify and repair those relationships.
Fair warning: The children who return to school this year are wiser, more informed, and empowered. Their school communities better be ready for them, and I suggest they be ready to listen.
Photo/Daria Peoples.
Daria Peoples’ first job was at nine years old in the children's section of her hometown library in Paso Robles, California. She worked a little, but she mostly read picture books. Daria loved basketball, drawing, and painting. Her dad gave her art lessons in their garage on Rose Lane, and Daria's mom rescued her first self-portrait from the kitchen trash can and had it professionally framed the next day. Today, it hangs in her parents' living room as a reminder that our life's purpose almost always introduces itself to us as a child. Daria earned a BA in English from UC Santa Barbara, where she found herself shelving books in the library once again and reading the writings of many notable authors. After earning a Master’s in Education and 10 years of teaching, Daria became a full-time author and illustrator. Daria lives in Las Vegas with her family.
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