Miss Breed

Today at work I read Dear Miss Breed a non-fiction work about the World War II Japanese internment camps and a librarian named Miss Breed who corresponded with a number of the children there. The book itself, while not a literary masterpiece, is well researched and provides a stark look at a time and situation in US history for which there is no justification nor excuse.

There are skeletons in the closets of US history that get glossed over in social studies in favor of re-learning everything you already knew about the Revolutionary War. As a member of the LDS church I was well aware of the darker bits of history in the US long before my history book had a one paragraph summary if the persecution of the Mormons. But there is so much that is just ignored in schools today. I don't think I ever heard of the internment camps that Americans of Japanese ancestry were forced into until I was in middle school or perhaps even high school. And none of it was as detailed as this book that is now owned but the children's section of the library.

The book really got me thinking about America. I noticed in some places the author quoted from an article Clara Breed had written in The Horn Book magazine entitled "American's with the Wrong Ancestors" written in 1943. I found out which volume of it had been printed in and then went downstairs to the periodicals section (after I got off work) to find it. All bless the BYU library! They have bound copies of The Horn Book since it first started printing. I located the correct volume (from the fun moving shelves!) and read it.
I have come to the conclusion that Miss Breed was a phenominal lady. I wonder how many people read that article--I wonder how many listened to what she was saying.

And then I think, Who are the Miss Breeds today? What are they saying? Am I listening? Is there something that I can do?

I found another article in The Horn Book by Clara Breed written in 1945 "Books that Build Better Racial Attitudes" that is still as pertinent today as it was sixty years ago. She said a lot of important things in the article about portrayals of race in fiction but the most profoud thing she said was in her last sentence--

"...the United States, the democracy which is not finished but still in the making."