A Literary Bubble: Books about a variety of cultures should be added to the required reading list

I’m a second-semester senior reading the last required novel for an English class in my high school career, and I’m disappointed.

Not because I’ve read too many required books — 16 total. I enjoy reading. I’m disappointed because I never once saw my culture as a Vietnamese American, or any Asian cultures at all, represented in the required reading. 

Out of the 16 books, 12 were focused on main characters set in European cultures. Take “Lord of the Flies” about a group of white American kids stranded on an island and “Great Gatsby” about wealthy East Coast couples. Fifteen were written by white authors and 13 were written by men.

If the universe was constructed out of my required reading novels, it’d officially be a white male Eurocentric bubble.

Students from non-European cultures need to see themselves represented by diverse characters and authors to understand that they belong. Other students would benefit from reading about experiences different from their own — especially in a largely homogenous community like East.

But we can’t expect high schoolers to check out cultural books in their free time, so books by multicultural authors about a variety of backgrounds should be added to the required reading curriculum. The International Baccalaureate English program offered at East already includes books about Egyptian, Indian, Japanese, Black cultures and more, but standard, honors and AP classes should follow suit.

All students should be required to gain new cultural perspectives so that they’re more prepared for the real world after high school, which — spoiler alert — is full of diverse cultures. Access can’t just be restricted to a select group of IB students. 

Going to school in Prairie Village is already isolating for minority students who learn about mainly Eurocentric history surrounded by mostly white classmates and teachers. English is a class with open discussions about novels — the perfect and only other opportunity for students to learn about the traditions, foods, struggles and overall life of Asian, Black, Latino and other cultures. 

Both minority and non-minority students don’t even know what they’re missing out on.

Classics that hold valuable lessons about morality and literary analysis should stay, like Ray Bradbury’s “Fahrenheit 451” which teaches about the dangers of censorship and Shakespeare’s “Romeo and Juliet” which introduces students to iambic pentameter. 

But instead of reading two more Shakespeare plays — “Othello” and “Hamlet” — I wish we had read a novel following characters in authentic African, Asian or South American culture. Even as a senior, I feel like my cultural understanding is lacking compared to out-of-state friends who study more varied curricula or are surrounded by a more diverse peer group.

I wish that as a class we’d read about at least one Asian role model or plot line that was more relatable during high school. As sad as it sounds, I hadn’t considered reading a book about Vietnamese characters until this year — or that a book like that might even exist — because I’ve been so conditioned to reading Eurocentric books at school.

Yes, the English department has taught me invaluable skills in literary analysis, writing composition, figurative language and poetry that I’m grateful for. 

But I feel like I’ve missed out on four years of opportunities to read and have interesting discussions about other cultures with classmates that could’ve led to greater understanding, like breaking down multi-generational Latino conflicts in Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s “One Hundred Years of Solitude” or analyzing a variety of East Asian superstitions in Amy Tan’s “Joy Luck Club.” 

Instead, I’ve sat through humiliating socratic seminars about “The Outliers,” a novel written by a non-Asian author that includes an entire chapter about how Asians are smart because their ancestors worked in rice paddies, where my majority-white class discussed whether or not the rice paddy theory is true. Academic success is a result of hard work and studying, not because a fraction of East Asians decades ago were farmers just like thousands of other non-Asian people.

I’ve read about satirical  imaginary “savage” Native Americans with “inhuman” face paint in “Brave New World,” when I wish we had read about real Native American experiences. 

Harmful stereotypes don’t count as cultural representation.

The prejudice that many older titles contain might’ve been more widely-accepted in the past, but required classics in English class that include dehumanizing stereotypes should, at the very least, be accompanied with contextual information teaching students about the harmful truth of the stereotypes instead of ignoring blatant bias.

It’s true that many East English classes offer students “choice” novels, where we get to pick our own book, that allow individual opportunities for cultural learning. Reading about a Vietnamese family for the first time in my most recent choice novel was comforting as the characters ate food that I have at my grandparents’ house and dealt with refugee struggles that my family also navigates. 

But while all three of the choice novels that I’ve selected in the past four years have been about diverse characters — “A Lesson Before Dying,” “Joy Luck Club” and “The Refugees” — I’ve watched as classmates simply go for the book with the least number of pages.

We shouldn’t make cultural books a “choice” for students to decide whether they want to indulge in or not — which many students who would benefit from cultural exposure the most might not select. 

I hope that the English department will culturally enhance the required reading list in the coming years. Or else, minoritized students will graduate disappointed, feeling like their family’s culture is less valuable than their white classmates’.

It’s time to pop that cultural bubble and read books that mirror the beautifully diverse real world.