Why I wrote The Secret Story of Sonia Rodriguez

After Homeboyz came out my career ascended to a whole new height. The popularity of the title mixed with the accolades mixed with the attention and awards moved me up “to the next level”. And then one day a group of girls, Latina students of mine, came up to me and asked…

“How come you don’t write a book about us?”

The Hoopster, Hip-Hop High School and Homeboyz all had African-American characters as their protagonist. Why? Because I aspired to get my students to read through writing books for them, books where they saw their own lives directly reflected on the page. But at Lynwood High, a growing portion of the student body was Hispanic – and my girls felt a little cheated.

When these Latina students hit me with this question, I immediately felt bad. As a teacher, you never want to play favorites between your kids and this was a group of really awesome girls, students I tremendously enjoyed having in class. Additionally, racial tension between brown and black kids on campus has been an issue for years and years (The race riot scenes in my book Hip-Hop High School and The Secret Story of Sonia Rodriguez are fictionalized accounts of race riots we have had on campus) so being fair and balanced in aspiring to write a book for all of my students, so that the Hispanics had the same feeling of “my English teacher wrote a book for us, too” instantly became a high priority for me.

And then I asked the question, the one which turned out to be the fuse that lit the dynamite.

“Well,” I said to this group of Hispanic teenager girls. “What should I write about?”

If you know anything about teens, you know that asking a teenage Latina to talk can be a dangerous thing because, once asked, they are going to talk and talk and talk and talk.

Lunchtime in my room. After school. They talked and talked and talked and I just listened and listened and listened. That’s when I saw a few incredibly common threads between so many of my Latina girls. (Note: These are simply my observations from our conversations – please don’t get all politically correct on me for being honest or go cuckoo with emails to me about matters of race, gender equality and so on. These are broad strokes here – case by case, of course it can be different)

1. Boys were treated better than girls in their home/culture. (i.e. Machismo is still alive and kicking.)
2. Girls were outperforming boys in school, really stepping into their own and coming on stronger than they ever had while the boys were lame.
3. Girls were caught in the crosshairs between serving the family and getting an education as if the two were mutually exclusive… and mothers from the prior generation who had made the choice to value familia first and foremost were often applying the most pressure to follow in their footsteps and be homemakers as opposed to independent, well-educated women with professional careers.
4. First generation immigrants (illegals and legal – I teach both at my school) often were the bridge to the English speaking world for their non-English speaking parents, of which there are millions in America. The daughters, even ones as young as 8 or 9 years old, were the official translators for parents who had never learned English – even if they had been in America for more than 10 years. They may have immigrated, but they did not assimilate.
5. Sexual molestation was a HUGE problem… and it was incredibly under-reported to authorities, other family members and so on. Teen Latina girls were being sexually abused at a far greater rate than I had ever imagined. It was, tragic to say, “common”.
6. Today’s young girls are smart as a whip, ferociously determined and a whole lotta fun to be around. They really do LOVE to laugh.

These notes – and others – are what inspired The Secret Story of Sonia Rodriguez, a book that has been exceptionally well-embraced by Hispanic readers, boys and girls alike. My own opinion as to why boys like this book so much is because of the cultural validation. In this novel I worked exceptionally hard to move beyond stereotypes and illuminate the beauty of the Hispanic culture. Latinas are a remarkable people, unique and distinguished, and the pride so many teens feel in seeing their culture portrayed in a positive light – despite it being “and warts and all” book – has really won over scores of young adults.

Last thing about The Secret Story of Sonia Rodriguez that I should mention is that I never in a million years would have been able to write this book without genuinely listening to my students. When you read the book, I take the reader deep into Mexico, a Mexico that a white guy like me could never really know firsthand. It truly took a latino to shine a light on this private, inside the culture world and I can’t tell you how many comments I have had from Hispanic readers who say, “how did you know this.”

It’s because real people illuminated it for me. From the code-switching language (my students proofed the Spanish that is peppered throughout the text) to the quirky little aspects of life as an American Latina who is caught between the two worlds, two cultures and two completely different sets of expectations (based on gender), without the real voice of my students, The Secret Story of Sonia Rodriguez would not have any real voice at all.

In a “what’s old is new again” type of teaching thrust, some schools are going old school and dividing kids by gender in the classroom. Here’s an article from the L.A. Times about an academy in our city that seems to be happy with the results of separating kids in this manner.

Me, I am not really sure how I feel about this.

Now first, let me say that I was able to teach an all-girls English class and and all-boys English class two years ago in an attempt to see if breaking kids into this type gender-based class alignment actually offered any benefits. (NOTE: we had a teacher that had been doing it for almost 30 years — a woman I greatly respected; an educator who swore by it — and she was retiring so I decided to take over the idea for just two of my sections.)

For me, it worked out really well… for the girls. That class blazed. Really, the girls were just on fire that year. It was amazing! I mean I never had so many kids do homework… so consistently.

And do the reading. WOW! We blazed through so many books it was remarkable. We did projects, had debates, almost NEVER had classroom management problems… the girls just tore it up.

The boys… not so much.

Now I am of the opinion that, in general, today’s girls are very often kicking the butt of today’s boys in school. I see it with my own eyes every day. More boys drop out. More girls go to college. More girls are at the top of the class whereby more boys seem to be barely scraping by. Of course, these are generalizations but if you’ll allow me to speak in generalizations, I’d say it’s pretty clear that the efforts of the women’s rights movement, feminism, birth control, call it what you want… have not only brought a healthier degree of equity to the role of gender in education, but the scales have actually been tipped in favor of the young ladies.

Girls today are leading the charge in our schools and personally, I have no problem with this. (BTW, this phenomenon is also part of the subplot of my book The Secret Story of Sonia Rodriguez. Having a proactive, strong female protagonist who valued her own schooling and was determined not to become “dependent” on a man plays a solid role in the novel and hits, I believe, a very true note with today’s teenage, girl readers.)

Yet, I didn’t teach all boys/girls classes again the next year. And why? I think it’s because I discovered that the boys needed the girls… much more so than the girls needed the boys. I mean we are definitely having “issues” with boys in our schools today — especially in Title 1 schools like mine — so for all the benefits I found the girls were getting, well… a part of it felt like they were coming at the expense of the boys. The boys found a pecking order. There were leaders, there were followers and there were wallflowers… and for sure there was a bit of the Lord of the Flies aspect to their interactions. But most troubling was that boys, once they found their pecking order, didn’t seem to feel any drive to break out of their roles once they had settled into them. It was as if once they all became socialized to a certain means of operating, they stayed within those confines no matter what I did to shake it up.

The girls perpetually pushed one another… and they supported one another (for the most part) as well. But the boys… well, like I said. The class was kind of like a kite that never really took off and flew the way I had hoped and the reason why – at least to me it seemed, the reason why was, in part, due to an absence of girls in the class.

Maybe it makes sense to divide kids up by gender? Maybe there is a bunch more I need to learn about teaching in a single-sex class? Either way, it’ll be interesting to see if this type of gender-based classroom assignment will catch on more in the future, that’s for sure.

I am not sure if sexual molestation by school personnel against students is on the rise or if the explosion of web-based media has simply drawn more attention and awareness to the problem. Either way, it’s absolutely tragic when this stuff happens.

And it devastates lives.

As this story in the L.A. Times shows, the victims, the kids, suffer in ways that color their existence and worldview for the rest of their life… and what scares me is how numb I think we in our society have become to the crime because of the frequency with which it is being reported these days.

Having had students confess to me their victimhood over and over (it’s so much more common than I ever realized — like SO MUCH MORE!) is what drove me to want to do more. And the fact is, an incident right out of my own classroom (the tale a female student told me about her uncle) was the original spark for my latest book of fiction, The Secret Story of Sonia Rodriguez.

In some ways, I am just amazed how SONIA has hit a nerve with so many kids. Especially girls. And even more especially, with Latina girls. This novel hasn’t become breakout big like TWILIGHT or anything like that but it does have a very strong group of kids and teachers that really support it extremely well and it’s being brought into classrooms all around the country. (And oh the emails they send to me.) For that I am honored.

But still, I want to do more.

I guess the question is, how can we better protect our kids? And what more can we do to help them when this stuff happens?

BTW, was it always so prevalent and yet under-reported, or is society so much more sexualized that seeing more and more of this type of abhorrent behavior is simply inevitable?

Yet, this still brings me back to the bigger point: what can be done?

I do know that banning books like Laurie Halse Anderson’s SPEAK is not the answer. Books open conversations in a way that few other forms of media can do. Read Laurie’s answer as to how she feels about banning books right here… you go Laurie!

The tragedy of sexual molestation is a plague on teens today and yet so many folks are sweeping it under the rug pretending it’s not happening in their school, their community, their world.

As Mark Twain once quipped, “Denial ain’t a river in Egypt.”

State testing ended last week but school doesn’t end for me until June 26. This far-too-easily sets itself up to be an educational dead zone, a time whereby teachers can simply fluff through the last few weeks of the school year and count down the days til summer.

And the truth is, the kids kind of expect us to do this. Well screw that! Unless each and every kid is being courted by Harvard, there’s work to do. (And even if they were being courted by Harvard, there’d still be work to do.) Besides, what am I going to do, show The Lion King for the next month?

Now don’t get me started on our math department. (Okay, that was a cheap shot. I mean we certainly have a few extremely hard working folks crunching numbers down the halls, but still, ask around… there are some peeps…)

Anyway…

So a student named Laura just came up to me in class after I assigned our final year end project. We’re going deep into propaganda with an Animal Farm and The Giver unit I am just starting right now whereby my students will write, produce, star in and direct their own 30-60 second commercials before we say hasta la vista to this section of their academic journey. (BTW, these projects are going to be wicked. I’ll be sure to post some as they come through but seeing as how we now have more tech tools available than ever before, I am fired up about how cutting edge these things are going to be… or so I hope.)

However, Laura just asked me about timetables for the project. Well, her vocab wasn’t as sophisticated. She didn’t use the word “timetables”. Her exact words were, “When’s this due, by June 12, cause I’m going back to Mexico then?”

“Like, for the rest of the school year?” I asked.

“Uh-huh.”

“But school isn’t out until June 26th. Do your parents know this?”

“I dunno.”

“What about your other teachers? Have you told any of them this yet?”

“No.”

“So it’s May 27 and you are going to be leaving in 2 weeks and you haven’t spoken to any of your teachers about small little academic things like missing finals or anything like that. When were you going to tell them/us?”

“I dunno.”

“Laura, let me ask you a question,” I said trying to remain composed. “Do you think that leaving school 2 weeks early is going to impact your grades?”

“I dunno.”

“Laura, let me ask you another question. Do you think a person should ever be paid full time wages for part-time work?”

“I guess, not really,” she answered.

“Laura, I think you need to go think this through a bit more. Maybe have a discussion with your parents, your other teachers and so on… and then create a plan. I mean you can’t just leave school for the summer whenever you want.”

But the thing is, she can. And probably will. This happens every year to teachers like myself. It’s a scene that has played itself out many, many times for gobs of teachers in California, Texas and so on. Matter of fact, it’s so common that I literally pilfered the scenario from my real life as a teacher and used it in my latest YA novel The Secret Story of Sonia Rodriguez, a book about a teen latina who is literally and figuratively caught between both two worlds and two cultures.

But in fiction, I get to solve the problem with a-learn-from-your-mistakes-inspirational-and-happy-ending. As a real teacher, I don’t. Laura and her family are going to make their own decision about when summer begins and my input probably will not carry much weight.

Aaarrgghh!! If only they could see what I see. School is a life-raft in America and we have got to get more of our kids to recognize how fiercely they need to clutch it.

A quarter is 9 weeks long. 2 weeks early means Laura will only have completed about 78% of her required attendance. And Laura is, at best, a C student in my class, so if you do the math (75% of 78%), she’s gonna be at about the 58% mark minus taking her year-end finals.

Extrapolate that across the board in all her classes and she goes from being a C student to an F student.

Well, there’s always summer school, right? Oh wait, she’s gonna be in Mexico. Hmm… now I teach in a school with over a 45% non-graduation rate and Laura is gonna bail out on the last two weeks of her freshman year of high school. I wonder how this is going to play out when the numbers get crunched in 2012?

So the fine folks of Pensacola absolutely implored me to come visit their school district because my book Homeboyz (so they swore) is absolutely beloved. (And if I was going to be in Orlando, I just could not leave the state of Florida without speaking to their students — and their teachers who were looking for innovative, exciting, refreshing and effective ways to reach their struggling students)

It was MAGICAL! I spoke to hundreds of kids who had read my books. (They couldn’t believe I was white.) I met hundreds of teachers who had taught or who were about to teach my books. (They were SO incredibly eager, excited and generous — Pensacola was IN THE HOUSE!!!) I signed so many books my hand is freakin’ killing me, I spoke so many words my voice is absolutely wrecked, I shared gobs of lessons, strategies and insights that instead of being drained I felt energized (caffeine helps), I’ve switched into 3 different times zones in 4 days and slept in different hotel beds with different pillows and had different levels of water pressure in the shower so that physically, emotionally and mentally I am just absolutely flying and absolutely drained all at the same time.

But I also feel America’s classroom are changing. It’s happening out there. People are sick of the textbooks. People are tired of the buffoonery that runs hand in hand with one size (supposedly) fits all material. People are eager to use real books that kids love to cultivate authentic literacy and reach real kids in ways that are true to their souls.

It’s absolutely incredible to see. I have a front row seat to a grass roots movement and while it’s personally quite taxing, I feel as if I am doing public service by visiting, chatting up and inspiring our nations kids and teachers. (BTW, The Secret Story of Sonia Rodriguez is catching fire… multicultual kids, especially girls, are falling in love with the book.)

It might take all the strength I’ve got, but today was a day that proves there are things that are really working in America’s classrooms which the mainstream media does not cover. Things like Raven, who came up and told me that Homeboyz was the first real book she’s ever read in her life (and she’s a junior in high school) and now she is excited to read something new. Things like Ms. Boles doing Book Chats with kids who have been labelled dis-fluent by the state of Florida. (Dis-fluent? What the hell is that? You can’t make this stuff up!) Things like Esther posting that she’s bummed I am gone but thrilled that a rock solid sub, Mrs. Sampson, is taking my classroom in great directions while I am gone.

And now it’s time for a 9:30 p.m. dinner by myself. After, I am going to grade some student outlines I brought with me to Florida to make sure the expository essays we are working on at Lynwood are spot on.

If it sounds bonkers, it is.

But I did buy my daughter a cool gift and when I get home there’s a heck of a lot of daddy time coming. A b-day party for cousin Talia this weekend, maybe a walk down the beach with my wife and a BBQ in the Southern California weather.

Mix in a little sleep and then I’ll be good to go to help our nation once again next week. But up next, family. If I screw that up while I am out trying to change the world I am a bigger idiot than anyone else on the internet. There’s a fine line between work and work-a-holic and if I sacrifice the people most important to me to help be of service to something that is a vacuum with and endless suck (i.e. the needs of our country’s public schools) I am a fool.

Goodness, when they say teachers don’t work hard, I am not sure who the heck they are talking about. I meet hard working educators all the time. It’s our badge of honor.

And in Florida, I just met scores of them.

Keep it up folks — you rock!!

So today I am back (at least at half speed) after burying my grandmother. It was a remarkable experience, a time filled with more smiles than tears, more laughs than anger and more warmth in my family than almost any other time I can recall in the past decade. Nothing like a funeral to remove a few shoulder chips — including my own — huh?

Crazy how a trip to a cemetery can put a few things into perspective.

And then I get a phone call that says this…

The American Library Association has named The Secret Story of Sonia Rodriguez an ALA Quick Pick for Reluctant Readers 2009. (Homeboyz was a top ten ALA Quick Pick for Reluctant Readers for 2008 so I just went back-to-back with my last two books of young adult fiction. Incredible, huh?)

And then they said, please make sure your publisher puts it on the cover. I have a feeling they won’t forget to mention this small little detail. Just a hunch. Too funny and too cool. Librarians are the BEST!!!

And then I get an invitation that says this…

The Convention Director of SPEAQ (SPEAQ is the Society for the Promotion of Teaching of English of a Second Language in Quebec) has formally invited me to be the keynote speaker at their annual conference in Montreal, Canada this November and is really hoping I’ll be able to say yes. (For really good pay, too including all travel meals and lodging.)

Not bad, I think. Not bad at all.

And then I check my email and get this…

Hi Alan,

I will do my best to keep this email brief. I have seen you speak several times and am always inspired by your passion and your drive. As a very new teacher, I need all of the inspiration to stick with it that I can get. I bought your book “Teaching Teens & Reaping Results” and started reading it tonight. I head back to my Master’s program Wed, and therefore, there goes my own reading time. Anyway, I saw the quote “Fall down seven times, stand up eight”and it really resonated with me.

I was lying in bed and I just kept thinking about that quote and how cool it would be to turn that into a poem – to write about 7 times we have fallen and the 8 times we get up. I am going to copy/paste my poem at the bottom of the email (I’m always wary of attachments from strangers). It was a profound writing experience for me. I wanted to share my idea with you since you inspired it!

Thanks for your wisdom and your genius!

Emily

P.S. The numbers were just for me to keep count. It’s too late for editing that before I send it! Cheers!

7 falls – 8 stands

1. I once fell when I stepped on a neighbor’s remote control because I let my anger get the best of me.

I stood up because I still wanted to be friends.

2. I once fell when my father died because I wanted him to help me figure out just who I was supposed to be and how.

I stood up because I know that’s what he wants me to do.

3. I once fell when we moved from Ohio to Wyoming because the boys who had finally reciprocated my crushes were going to be left behind.

I stood up because I figured there would be more romance ahead.

I once fell when Nick died that day in August because he was my best friend, we loved each other, and 18 year old boys are not supposed to have their heads’ crushed in car accidents.

I stood up because if I didn’t, the pain would crush me forever.

I once fell in Texas because I was so painfully lonely; two years and not a single friend to show for it.

I stood up because I knew that that was not how I wanted to live my life, and I knew I had the power to change it.

I once fell when my Mom was a suicidal pain medication addict for years because of the intolerable back pain the surgeries caused; she thought I did not love her because I told her she should not drive under the influence of the drugs.

I stood up because I loved her and wanted my strength to overwhelm her and become her strength.

I once fell when I was terrified of committing myself to my husband for the fear that he would also die, and I would be left with the grief.

I stood up because fear will not rule my life, and I will never stop believing in the powers that be.

The Book Jam ning is jamming, I can’t wait to get back to school and start rockin’ again with my kids and my literary agent just came to terms with Disney on a children’s book I submitted to them — my first children’s picture book (something I have always wanted to do). Plus, my real goal for the next, oh, rest of my years on this planet, is to bring authentic books back into our classrooms, get rid of the ridiculous scripted curriculums and let our kids read some awesome YA literature so that educators can simultaneouesly cover the standards, engage the students and build a bridge to 21rst learning projects so that America doesn’t get left behind much in the way England got smoked by folks like us due to their hubris about 150 years ago.

It’s our time, people. We MUST revolutionize our nation’s schools. And who better than us?

Remember when I said I was back at half speed? Screw it — full steam ahead. After all, one day we’re all gonna be gone anyway. What seems to me the matter the most is the way in which we spend our days while we’re here.

I am back on the roller coaster… and thrilled that you are coming along for the ride.