10th Grade Extended Research Project (ERP): 10 - Reduced Inequalities

The classic story of life in Apartheid South Africa.

Mark Mathabane was weaned on devastating poverty and schooled in the cruel streets of South Africa's most desperate ghetto, where bloody gang wars and midnight police raids were his rites of passage. Like every other child born in the hopelessness of apartheid, he learned to measure his life in days, not years. Yet Mark Mathabane, armed only with the courage of his family and a hard-won education, raised himself up from the squalor and humiliation to win a scholarship to an American university. AVAILABLE: WSA Library and Kitsap Regional Library

One of the world's leading experts on wealth, poverty, and the gap that separates them explains how wealth is unevenly spread throughout our world, now and through time. Economist Branko Milanovic uses history, literature and stories straight out of today's newspapers to discuss one of the major divisions in our social lives: between the haves and the have-nots. He reveals just how rich Elizabeth Bennet's suitor Mr. Darcy really was; how much Anna Karenina gained by falling in love; how wealthy ancient Romans compare to today's super-rich; where in Kenyan income distribution was Obama's grandfather; how we should think about Marxism in a modern world; and how location where one is born determines his wealth. He goes beyond mere entertainment to explain why inequality matters, how it damages our economic prospects, and how it can threaten the foundations of the social order that we take for granted. AVAILABLE: WSA Library and Seattle Public Library

The author offers direct advice on how to have a conversation about race, with analysis of topics that may lead to contentious conversations, such as cultural appropriation, affirmative action, police brutality, the N-word, microaggressions, and the model minority myth. Background informations provided on each topic and talking points to allow for having more constructive conversations. The author encourages readers to overcome the idea of debating someone else without the ability to listen to other perspectives. Most relevant is a sobering and enlightening chapter on checking and recognizing one's privilege. AVAILABLE: WSA Library, Kitsap Regional Library, Port Townsend Library, and Ms. Garvin's classroom

It is 1953. Thomas Wazhushk is the night watchman at the first factory to open near the Turtle Mountain Reservation in rural North Dakota. He is also a prominent Chippewa Council member, trying to understand a new bill that is soon to be put before Congress. The US Government calls it an 'emancipation' bill; but it isn't about freedom - it threatens the rights of Native Americans to their land, their very identity. How can he fight this betrayal?

Unlike most of the girls on the reservation, Pixie - 'Patrice' - Paranteau has no desire to wear herself down on a husband and kids. She works at the factory, earning barely enough to support her mother and brother, let alone her alcoholic father who sometimes returns home to bully her for money. But Patrice needs every penny to get if she's ever going to get to Minnesota to find her missing sister Vera.

The novel is based on the extraordinary life of the author’s grandfather who worked as a night watchman and carried the fight against Native dispossession from rural North Dakota all the way to Washington, D.C. AVAILABLE: WSA Library, Kitsap Regional Library and Port Townsend Library

Ghana, eighteenth century: two half sisters are born into different villages, each unaware of the other. One will marry an Englishman and lead a life of comfort in the palatial rooms of the Cape Coast Castle. The other will be captured in a raid on her village, imprisoned in the very same castle, and sold into slavery.

Homegoing follows the parallel paths of these sisters and their descendants through eight generations: from the Gold Coast to the plantations of Mississippi, from the American Civil War to Jazz Age Harlem. Yaa Gyasi's extraordinary novel illuminates slavery's troubled legacy both for those who were taken and those who stayed--and shows how the memory of captivity has been inscribed on the soul of our nation. AVAILABLE: WSA Library, Kitsap Regional Library, and Port Townsend Library

Sovereign Traces, Volume 1: Not (Just) (An)Other is an anthology of contemporary North American Indian literature with imaginative illustrations by U.S. and Canadian artists. The book provides a unique, extended possibility for audiences to engage with works by prominentauthors such as Stephen Graham Jones, Gordon Henry Jr., Gerald Vizenor, Warren Cariou, Niigaanwewidam James Sinclair, Louise Erdrich, Joy Harjo, Richard Van Camp, and Gwen Westerman. Through this exciting medium, Sovereign Traces beckons to audiences that are both new to and familiar with Native writing, allowing for possibilities for reimagined readings along the way. Readers will find works of graphic literature, uniquely including both poetry and fiction, newly adapted from writing by American Indians and First Peoples. AVAILABLE: WSA Library

Following the death of his father Yosef, Jonas Woldemariam feels compelled to make sense of the volatile generational and cultural ties that have forged him. Leaving behind his marriage and job in New York, he sets out to retrace his mother and father’s honeymoon as young Ethiopian immigrants and weave together a family history that will take him from the war-torn country of his parents’ youth to a brighter vision of his life in America today. In so doing, he crafts a story- real or invented-that holds the possibility of reconciliation and redemption. AVAILABLE: Kitsap Regional Library, Port Townsend Library, and Ms. Garvin's classroom

Looking for a little mischief after finding an old flare gun, Ron and Ben find themselves in trouble when the local gas bar on Agamiing Reserve goes up in flames, and they are wrongly accused of arson by the sheriff's son. As the investigation goes forward, community attitudes are revealed, and the truth slowly comes to light. AVAILABLE: Kitsap Regional Library

For as long as she can remember, it's been Robin and her mom against the world. Growing up as the only child of a single mother in Seoul, Korea, wasn't always easy, but it has bonded them fiercely together. So when a vacation to visit friends in Huntsville, Alabama, unexpectedly becomes a permanent relocation--following her mother's announcement that she's getting married--Robin is devastated. Overnight, her life changes. She is dropped into a new school where she doesn't understand the language and struggles to keep up. She is completely cut off from her friends in Seoul and has no access to her beloved comics. At home, she doesn't fit in with her new stepfamily, and worst of all, she is furious with the one person she is closest to--her mother. Then one day Robin's mother enrolls her in a local comic drawing class, which opens the window to a future Robin could never have imagined. AVAILABLE: WSA Library, Kitsap Regional Library, and Port Townsend Library

A heartbreaking, full-color graphic novel of the refugee drama.

In the French port town of Calais, famous for its historic lace industry, a city within a city arose. This new town, known as the Jungle, was home to thousands of refugees, mainly from the Middle East and Africa, all hoping, somehow, to get to the UK. Into this squalid shantytown of shipping containers and tents, full of rats and trash and devoid of toilets and safety, the artist Kate Evans brought a sketchbook and an open mind. Combining the techniques of eyewitness reportage with the medium of comic-book storytelling, Evans has produced this unforgettable book, filled with poignant images—by turns shocking, infuriating, wry, and heartbreaking.

Accompanying the story of Kate’s time spent among the refugees—the insights acquired and the lives recounted—is the harsh counterpoint of prejudice and scapegoating arising from the political right. Threads addresses one of the most pressing issues of modern times to make a compelling case, through intimate evidence, for the compassionate treatment of refugees and the free movement of peoples. AVAILABLE: WSA Library and Kitsap Regional Library