Recent Grad Seeks Out 'Mirror' Books for Students Under-Represented in Literature

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Junior high teacher Jimena Santillano reads aloud to her students.

Jimena Santillano is new to teaching, but she's already using her voice to help shape the conversation about representation in education. 

Santillano, a Latina first-generation college student and the daughter of immigrants, graduated from the U of A in May with a master's degree in secondary English language arts education. She's in her first semester of teaching eighth-graders at Lakeside Junior High in Springdale.  

Over the summer, an article she wrote about Latinas in literature was published in the leading journal for the practice of teaching English language arts, English Journal. The article, "No One Sees Me: Representation of Latinas in Literature," argues that students need to see themselves in the literature they read in class to effectively engage.  

She recounts her experience growing up in Arkansas and never having the opportunity to read a book in which the protagonist looked or spoke like her. As a student teacher, she found that her experience was repeating itself, even though the majority of students in the school were Latinx.  

As part of her research, Santillano found an essay by Rudine Sims Bishop that resonated deeply with her. Bishop wrote that students need "window" books to help them understand the diverse and complex world they live in, "sliding glass door" books to become part of a world different from their own and "mirror" books to offer readers a reflection of their own lived experiences. 

Santillano noted in the article that she didn't read a true mirror book until her final year of college. A teacher at the school where was interning introduced her to the book I Am Not Your Perfect Mexican Daughter by Erika L. Sánchez.  

"Reading a book for the first time that represented my culture, my family's skin tones and our unique positions in life confirmed for me how powerful and validating 'mirror books' can be," she wrote. 

Now she's passionate about finding mirror books for those who are under-represented in literature. 

One of Santillano's former U of A professors, Christian Goering, has started assigning her English Journal article to students in the Master of Arts in Teaching program. The article reminds students to consider representation no matter what is being taught. It also serves as a challenge to students to write for a professional audience early in their careers.  

Now that Santillano has her own classroom, she's even more determined to prepare students to think critically and empathetically in a way that helps them deal with real-world issues they may face outside of school, using English education as an avenue. 

"As a Latina, I am uniquely positioned to teach students, especially students of color, considering the rising minority population in my area, and the United States as a whole," she said. "My experience as a minority impacts my lens as a teacher in that I recognize the need for representation and diversity in the texts taught in the classroom, and the need to validate and uplift students of color as valuable members of society and as scholars."