Read Across America to “Celebrate a Nation of Diverse Readers”
What’s in a name? Everything, Alma Sofia Esperanza José Pura Candela would tell you. At first the title character in the picture book Alma and How She Got Her Name thought six names was far too long. “It never fits,” she complains to her father. But when he explains how her entire name honors the family’s history, culture and aspirations, she realizes it tells her not only where she came from but who she may become.
Oregon kindergarten teacher Gloria Pereyra-Robertson learned about Alma and How She Got Her Name from the NEA’s rebranded Read Across America program and calendar. She now regularly reads it in her kindergarten classroom to celebrate the diversity of her students from Central and South America, Vietnam, Laos, Samoa and other parts of the world. Along with books like The Name Jar and Renee Has Two Names she introduces her students to the many different names children have and how learning to appreciate and pronounce them teaches children the unique value every name and every student brings to school.
“We’ll have a discussion about how it can feel to be in a new school and a new country where nobody can say your name the way they did back home,” she says. “We talk about how lonely it can be to not know the language and how hard it can be to make friends.”
Pereyra-Robertson, the daughter of Mexican immigrants, knows what it’s like to grow up surrounded by books about white children and not see herself in them. She also knows the pain of having an unfamiliar name. Even today, people call her by her married name, Robertson, instead of attempting Pereyra-Robertson. Growing up, her sister, Taide, would come home crying from the constant teasing about her name. Kids called her Tidal Wave or Tidy Bowl. She wants her students to have a different experience and see the beauty in each other’s names. Like Alma, CONTINUE READING: Read Across America to “Celebrate a Nation of Diverse Readers”
