Sherman Alexie and the War on Diversity in U.S. Young Adult Literature

초록

Sherman Alexie’s multiple award winning 2007 young adult novel, The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian was the second most frequently challenged novel in the U.S. in 2012 and the top most frequently challenged or banned book in 2014, according to The American Library Association. This essay examines representative attempts to ban Alexie’s novel and the discourse surrounding the conflicts over such book challenges to show that disputes about explicit language in YA literature are not really about whether particular words are age-appropriate or not, but rather who controls language, and thus, that book challenges in the field of YA literature are not really about protecting children or even morality, but rather, are about protecting the privilege to determine what the social mirror reflects and as a result, authorizes as authentic. Further, this paper argues that YA book challenges are in fact, attempts to illegitimize diversity by marking difference as disabled and/or deviant, and moreover, restrict sociocultural citizenship for minoritized groups through policing of belonging via assimilation and homogenization in order to control the idea of America and who is and can be an American through censorship.

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