Prairie Lotus

Worth: points - Particulars)

From the Writer

Who else was there?

Some ideas about writing Prairie Lotus, by Linda Sue Park

Once I learn or write historic fiction, there’s one query that’s all the time on the forefront of my thoughts: Who else was there? A lot of the historical past that we be taught at school is restricted to the well-known names and the massive occasions. To get a extra full understanding of our world, we’d like quite a lot of views, not simply the well-known ones.

Prairie Lotus is my try to discover the unfinished story of the American frontier. By means of historical past lessons and social research at school, in addition to by way of widespread tradition and the media, too many people have internalized a narrative concerning the American West that stars White settlers and White cowboys and lined wagons and log cabins. That story ignores the viewpoints and contributions of numerous individuals who had totally different experiences of the American West.

Hanna, the primary character in Prairie Lotus, desires to go to high school within the one-room schoolhouse, make a pal, and assist out in her father’s dress-goods store. However as a result of she is a component Asian, she faces fixed racism from her White neighbors. Her easy needs show to be troublesome, even harmful, and he or she has to seek out her personal option to survive and thrive.

Hanna’s story is in lots of respects a type of ‘dialog’ with the long-lasting Little Home books written by Laura Ingalls Wilder. As a baby, I spent hours imagining that I too lived on the frontier within the 1800s, and that I used to be Laura’s greatest pal.

But there have been additionally passages in these books that made me uncomfortable, even sad. A number of characters, together with Laura’s Ma, repeatedly categorical racist attitudes about Native People. I knew in my coronary heart that Ma would by no means have allowed Laura to play with me, as a result of I had darkish hair and darkish eyes and tan pores and skin just like the Indians she so hated. Prairie Lotus is my try to reconcile my childhood love of the Little Home books with my eventual understanding of their painful racism.

Whereas the frontier-town setting of Prairie Lotus could also be acquainted to many readers, Hanna’s interactions with each the city’s residents and girls from the close by Ihanktonwan reservation will, I hope, present one other method to consider this chapter of American historical past. For instance, there are scenes the place Hanna hears the character Wichapiwin and different Native girls talking the Dakota language. Youngsters’s books of the previous normally had Native characters speaking in grunts and pidgin. To indicate them talking their very own language is a part of a extra full fact.

Prairie Lotus additionally explores the significance of the work girls did on the frontier. The historical past textbooks focus primarily on the accomplishments of the boys who handed legal guidelines and fought battles and had cities and roads and buildings named for them. As a baby, one purpose I cherished the Little Home books was due to their emphasis on the actions of on a regular basis life recounted in nice element, like making ready meals and making clothes and going to high school. These have been spheres the place girls had energy, and once more, their tales have largely been ignored. Who else was there? Ladies like Wichapiwin and women like Hanna.

Younger readers need and deserve a fuller, richer fact. I hope that Prairie Lotus will immediate them to ask questions and search out lesser-known tales that may contribute to a better understanding of the world.

Listed below are just a few extra titles concerning the American West to get them began.

The Birchbark Home collection, by Louise Erdrich
Dragon’s Gate and The Traitor, by Laurence Yep
Underneath a Painted Sky, by Stacy Lee
Escape to Gold Mountain, by David H.T. Wong
Dangerous Information for Outlaws, by Vaunda Micheaux Nelson