Dr. Nanika Coor interviews Sailaja Joshi, founder of Mango & Marigold Press, about the importance of diversity and inclusion in what your child is reading.
Does your child’s bookshelf have many books featuring communities, identities, and abilities outside of their own? Do you know what kind of messaging to look out for when choosing books for kids? Dr. Nanika Coor interviews Sailaja Joshi, founder of a publishing house that focuses on South Asian stories, about the importance of diversity and inclusion in children’s literature.
Project Parenthood is hosted by Dr. Nanika Coor. A transcript is available at Simplecast.
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Hey parents! You're listening to the Project Parenthood podcast. I'm your host, Dr. Nanika Coor, clinical psychologist and respectful parenting therapist. Each week, I’ll introduce you to the same respectful parenting practices that I use to help parents repair and deepen connections with their children. You’ll get tips for cultivating more parental self-compassion, more cooperation from your kids, and more joy, peace, and resilience in your relationship with them.
In today’s episode, I’m talking to Sailaja Joshi, the founder of Mango & Marigold Press, an award-winning independent publishing house that shares the sweet and savory stories of the South Asian experience. You’re going to hear about why diversity and representation in children’s books are important, and the role mindfulness plays in teaching kids about diversity and acceptance. Stick around ‘till the end to hear about why diversity in books isn’t just good for people of color.
Here’s my chat with Sailaja!
Nanika Coor:
Hi, Sailaja. I'm so glad to have you here at Project Parenthood.
Sailaja Joshi:
Hi Nanika. How are you? I'm so thrilled to be here. Thank you for having me.
NC:
Absolutely. So you're gonna give us a little bit of an idea about how we can diversify our children's bookshelves. First of all, why is diversity and representation in children's books? So important?
SJ:
You know, children aren't born with this inherent feeling of not belonging. Like if you see children on the playground and things like that, they know that each other is belonging, their yearn is to love and to be with whomever. Society teaches them that. And so diversity and representation of traditionally under-minoritized people. And that includes large groups of people. It's not just about race, but gender, sex, identity, ability, all of those individuals, it's just giving children the opportunity to see the world for what the world is and who is in it and who takes up space and to help build the muscle of empathy and to continue to amplify it in their existence. And so I think having a bookshelf that represents the world around us is just fundamental. It is just the ground level of where we start to bring, bring together the society that we want to live in.
NC:
Absolutely. I think it's really, really important that, as what you're saying, that children see in their media, in their books, really what they sort of see in the world around them. And sometimes maybe even not what they see in the world around them, right. If you're living in a particular homogeneous kind of area, there's other people in the world, besides just what you see, right. Just knowing what's beyond your block, what's beyond your city, what's beyond your state beyond your country. Absolutely. So what role does mindfulness play in teaching our children about diversity and acceptance?
SJ:
I think mindfulness is this wonderful opportunity to give our children a moment to pause, reflect and ask questions. I think children are inherently curious little beings, cuz they're just trying to figure out the world. And I think books like Mango Marigold Press's books, they're wonderful publishers who have these diverse books that represent the world around us. We give children an opportunity to have a safe space, to ask questions about what is there and to pause. And I think a lot of us think of mindfulness as sitting down meditating and chanting um. And that is absolutely one form of mindfulness for sure. But I think it can come in so many ways and questioning can be another thoughtful way to bring mindfulness into your existence to ask questions in a safe way. And that's a lot of times what children's books help to introduce.
NC:
Absolutely, bringing new topics in and you know, what's happening in this very present moment. Often when you're reading books, kids do have a lot of questions and we're so socialized in our society to get through to the end of that book, you know? So they break in with a question and we're like, let me just finish what I'm reading.
SJ:
Let me just finish this sentence. Let me just finish this sentence.
NC:
Absolutely. And then, but sometimes like that's the way their thoughts are coming, in this really sort of organic way. They're not waiting until the end of the story for those questions to pop up and being able to sort of pause and engage your child in that question and that, those are those safe moments. And it does allow a child to know that this is a safe place where you can ask me anything. You can interrupt me and ask me anything and that's hard. It's hard for us to sort of train ourselves to slow down in that mindful way that you're talking about.
SJ:
It's a wonderful practice and I think it helps to also cement this idea with children that it's okay to ask questions. We shouldn't have the right answers. And as soon as we let ego get in the way of thinking that we have the right answers and our answer is the right answer, that's when we end up where we are in many ways. Instead, taking time to pause, reflect and ask questions gives us this opportunity to give our children space, to think of a world beyond what they're seeing.
NC:
So what are some concrete ways that we can diversify our child's home library and make sure there's more inclusion of communities outside of our own?
SJ:
Yeah, it's a really good question. And I think now with the advent of this thing called social media, I don't know if you've heard of it. There's actually a lot of decent resources now online. I'm a huge fan of the, the conscious kid who does a really wonderful job of providing roundups of different children's books. But I think when you're at your local independent bookstore, I would encourage you to go there because they're wonderful purveyors of books. First thing I like to do is take a look at the displays that they've created. People are being really thoughtful now about how they're displaying books. And I was recently at a new bookstore in our neighborhood and they had, you know, it's Asian Pacific heritage month and they had a wide variety of books and like I'm in this children's book space.
And I was like, oh, I haven't, I haven't heard of that book that are by authors, from that community that are illustrated by authors of that community. And that's really nice. But if you might not have access to that and for some reason you maybe don't have a list to look at when you're at the bookstore, when you're at the library and you see a children's book. One of the first questions I ask myself is who's the author. And I take a moment to look up the author and understand, are they writing from their community or to a community, or are they writing at a community? Are they telling a community how their story should be told? And that's when I have a problem.
So I do a little reflection there. One of the next things I'll take a look at is I'll open the book and read it. I, and some people are like, don't you just flip through the pages generally. And I'm like, no, I read children's books. Because a lot of people assume that writing a children's book is easy and they assume because it's for child, that it is an easy task and that it doesn't take a lot of work. And let me tell you, I read hundreds of manuscripts a year. It is not an easy task. And so it needs to entertain. It needs to provide the child with some joy. And then I take a look at the subject matter and the storyline and look for some very basic stereotypes, you know, like what is the language they're using?
Traditionally minoritized characters, are they playing secondary roles? Is the hero of this story, really the hero of this story or are they uplifting someone else? I on practice actively do not look for books with a white male lead. I actively avoid it because my children see that in their space all the time. You know, so many books, more than 70% of the books, feature stories about white protagonists and animals. You know, there's something like five times as many books about dogs and trucks than there are about all children of color. And if you think about that, think about what that does to a child's psyche. So, so early on to see your absence in the existence, on a shelf, you know, and then I think really it's taking the time it's taking time and that's the hard part because I think we grew up with some books that are really problematic that my children don't read now because it's come out that those authors are racist, that these caricatures are racist, that members of who the community are saying that hurts me, that representation hurts my existence and the response to that is not, but it's classic. The answer to that is thank you for informing me. I am so sorry that you had to even do that work. And I am removing that from my bookshelf and that's it.
NC:
I think these are such amazing points that you're raising. There's so many things in there I'm like, what do I go to first? There's so many things I wanna comment on. One of the first things you said that really stuck out to me is the idea of really looking for children's books where especially children's books that are about people of color, children of color books that are written, you know, by a person potentially in that cultural group. Right? Yeah. I mean, certainly I understand that there are many people hoping, many white people hoping for more representation in books and it's like, I'll write a book about a black child. Right. And I get that the intention is great, but you're writing from a perspective and for a perspective that you just don't really have any experience with personally.
Right. And you just don't know how it feels. And, and it's not to say that you can't be sympathetic or empathetic with that or anything. And so I think that's really, really important that idea of you looking up the author, that idea of you really looking through the book. What kind of language do they use? Is it like gendered language? Is it inclusive language? Is it just solely very super binary language? There's just so many ways in which language just in and of itself can be excluding groups of people so I just, I really love this point about taking a look at the book because just because it has people's faces on it of color doesn't mean it's a book that is a good one. That's sending a good message. That's sending a message that you want your child to internalize.
SJ:
Yeah. And I think also in our publishing house, one of my philosophies has been the quiet moment. I think so many books have become teaching tools. And what's really interesting about a book that's a teaching tool is it's not teaching that person something. Like a book about Diwali, which to be really clear, like my publishing house has a wonderful book about Diwali. It's one of our best sellers. We need that book. I'm not teaching Hindus, Buddhists, Jains, and Sikhs about Diwali. They know about Diwali, who am I teaching? Who is that book for?
And so if you take a look at our books, now they really celebrate joy and heritage.
NC:
Absolutely. I think what you're saying is just so very important, the idea that, of who, who is the audience for this book. Who is the audience and this other idea of just because there are people of color on this book who are maybe different than your color doesn't mean that, that book isn't for you doesn't mean that your child doesn't learn something from somebody else's culture. Somebody else's value, somebody else's folklore, because so much of those stories that are old stories and everyone's culture are things that are still universal and that really still apply to children today and children's lives and the things that the perspectives that children have of the world in, in all the different cultures. And I think that's so important just in that way of being diverse in cultures and, and subject matter. Yeah. I just really, I love that. I love that. What you've said about that.
SJ:
I think too in our illustrations, we try to create some quiet moments too. So we have this book called Herney and Padman say Este, and it's this little yoga pose book essentially. And it takes her friend they're at a yoga class, like parent-kid yoga class. And the opening scene is Padman walking in with her two moms. One is Indian. One looks white and she is walking in and the line is like, you know, Padman and her ummas walked into the community center. And that is the conversation that is it, there is no conversation about Padman has two moms. There is no making this a thing. Instead it's like, yeah, shoot, you know, who else does yoga? These two moms with their child. Isn't that cool. And that's it.
NC:
Right? Because it's really important to see children from all colors, doing just regular, everyday things like going to yoga class, regular, we don't all have to be saving the world from racism. We don't have to always be having this really dark story of strife and terrible things happening to trauma. Right. Like sometimes we just go to yoga class. That's also what happens.
Going back to what you said about the audience that authors are writing for. I was reading a parenting book written for adults. It was a parenting book. And one line in the book said something like, as white parents, we really just don't really understand what it's like for so and so, and so, and I was just looking at the book, I was like, turning it around. I'm thinking, did you really only think that white people would read this book? Like, that's the idea that that book was written to a slice of people as if there are no other kinds of parents in the world? And it wasn't like there was anything about that book that was particularly, like about race in and of in and of itself.
Right. It had nothing to do with that, necessarily, but it was just, just the idea that it was like here are these parent parenting practices that we all know about. We like assuming that there are only white people reading this book and no one else needs this book or would read it, or I don't know, but it's just, that in the moment I'm reading this sentence, I'm going, oh, oh, this book isn't for me. I'm not even in this person's mind when they're writing this book. Right. And so it's really, it just made me not wanna read the rest of the book. I just sort of threw it down. I was like, oh, I guess this isn't my thing. OK.
SJ:
But publishing has such an interesting series of gatekeepers that book, if it was with any sort of publishing house, like anything that's beyond self-published easily had seven to 10 different gatekeepers that read that line that were like, mm, yeah. Keep going. Mm-hmm that sounds great. Mm-hmm and that's the part that really confuses me.
NC:
What's one misconception you'd like to clear up about diversity and inclusion in children's literature?
SJ:
That it's only for brown families, families of color that's wrong. That somehow our books won't resonate with family like white families. I will say this. I grew up never seeing myself in children's literature and stories resonated with me. I am a Bibliophile, you don't see this here on the screen, but I am surrounded by books. I think the other misconception is that we've done it, that we got there. Like it's just so not true. We are so much further from where we wanna be. I think representation now is like, there are maybe four times as many books about dogs and trucks than there are about all children of color. And, also that it somehow has to be the side project, the side thing of publishing houses. I think that's another really interesting piece that I've seen a lot of the big, you know, now it's the big four major publishing houses doing. We have done this with intent and purpose since our inception with no funding from outside, no venture capital, no backing. I work a full-time job and still do this cause I don't take a salary. And we've made it work. It can sell and win awards.
It's, again, just the ground, it's just like the foundation. We should have books that represent everyone and then we should have really good books that represent everyone. And then we should have books with different illustration styles that represent everyone and that's it. That's it. It doesn't seem to me, it doesn't seem that groundbreaking, but it absolutely is in the publishing world. Right.
NC:
Right, and as you said, you know, we haven't arrived at this post racial place that, you know, we still have a lot of work to do. So the idea, you sort of started this conversation, talking about how you very intentionally don't get books for your children that have white male, CIS white males as the main character because your child, your child is exposed to that already. Like you don't have to sort of double down on that. That's everywhere all over everywhere you look right. But it's less, it's less. As you said, you're more often going to see a truck or an animal than you are going to see a person of color at all. So really having to be intentional about that, your child isn't going to see those images, especially if you live in a very homogenous kind of environment, your child isn't gonna just see these images of people walking down the street. If you don't, if you don't intentionally put them there, they don't exist for your child at all.
SJ:
Yeah. Yeah. You have to. And I talk a lot about this with my therapist too. This intentional parenting that can be very, very hard. It is so exhausting. That's why my publishing house started, cuz I wanted to give my oldest child when I was pregnant with them. I wanted to give them books that represented their culture, history and heritage. And that wasn't easy. And that was like eight years ago with a country. Like my family's from India, identifies Hindu, there's billion, a billion of these people billion. And I couldn't find representation. And that's when I went down this rabbit hole of realizing that how little representation there was in this space for underrepresented, traditionally underrepresented minoritized communities.
The way traditional publishing worked is there was like four or five interns reading through the submissions and deciding. And how do you decide when you have to read like 800 manuscripts in like three weeks? How are you deciding you look at a name, you look at a title and your bias, hops straight in and then you meet someone and they're not using traditional English language. Maybe, they're using a different type of meter, a different, this, a different thought that gets thrown out. So it's not that they haven't existed. It's that the gate keeping of traditional publishing didn't allow them to exist. And that's why I very intentionally used the term minoritized. It was done to them cuz they are not, if you think about it, a minority in the world. Absolutely.
NC:
Right. So as we're wrapping up, I just wanted to ask you, you know, what is one thing you really want listeners to walk away with from our conversation today?
SJ:
One thing, oh my. I think it's to question and challenge what you're reading and how you're reading it and who it's by and where you're buying it. I stepped into this world of publishing from a very naive sort of pure space of a mother wanting to create something for their oldest, for their child. And now that I've seen this lens of, I really advocate for challenge and change. Challenge yourself, challenge your children, your children's teachers. Offer up those books that are better replacements, like give it to them, use your time and money there. And always question what you're reading.
NC:
Absolutely. I think those are great. Question what you're reading, make some change. Challenge the people in your world to really think about what they're consuming when it comes to books, children's books in particular. And the idea is that diverse books are for everybody.
SJ:
Yes, exactly. Exactly.
NC:
Awesome. Thank you so much for talking with us today on project parenthood. And I would love to hear more. I'm gonna get in touch with you and I wanna hear more about your publishing house and all the things that you all are doing. Is there anything you'd like to let the listeners know about?
SJ:
You can follow us online on social media, MangoandMarigoldpress.com. And in addition to that, we also have our nonprofit wing thousand and one diverse books that we started just late last year to help us to bridge the gap in book deserts for accessibility of children's books, literacy can be linked to lots of different social determinants and we're helping to bridge that gap. So you can follow us in thousand one diverse books online and yeah, I can't wait to continue the conversation. Great. Looking forward
NC:
Thank you so much for being with us.
SJ:
Thank you for having me.
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I hope that’s helpful!
You can learn more about Sailaja’s publishing house, Mango and Marigold Press at www.mangoandmarigoldpress.com and follow her on Instagram and Facebook at mangoandmarigoldpress (all one word).
You can learn more about my work with parents at www.brooklynparenttherapy.com and on Instagram at BKPARENTS.
If you have more questions about diversifying your child’s bookshelf, or any other parenting questions or stories, leave me a message at (646) 926-3243 and be sure to let me know if it's okay to use your voice on the show. Or, send an email to parenthood@quickanddirtytips.com. And don’t forget to subscribe to Project Parenthood on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen to podcasts.
Catch you next week!