The first book from the Just Like Me Project is similarly named Just Like Me. The book is mostly based on a biographical account of my nephew, Jordon, realizing through print, digital, and in-person appearances, that he and Obama look a lot alike. In fact, because Jordon is biracial, having a white mother and an African American father, Jordon shares enough of Obama's racial features to have said, comfortably and unprovoked at age 3, Obama "looks like me!" (as opposed to Jordon looking like Obama). The book, however, is bigger than Jordon's experience alone. The experience Jordon had, as represented in the book, stands in recognition of what it means for Jordon and for all children of color to grow up in the Age of Obama and consequently, to be better positioned now than at any other time in history to imagine and to see themselves achieving their highest aspirations and holding the most coveted political office in the world.
This moment is equally important for white children. It invites them, on subconscious and conscious levels, to confront and to reconsider the placement of people of color in books, movies, and other media, and in society while also calling white children to participate in the project of normalizing and maintaining cross-racial and cross-cultural friendships.
Just Like Me is also about learning to read and about the liberating qualities of entering other worlds through words. Reading is an incredibly public act, though it may have private origins for many of us. For example, I'll borrow from Alberto Manguel's heavily autobiographical and absolutely stunning book, A History of Reading, where he asserts that to read means to affirm, "I am not alone". Having grown up in Buenos Aires, Argentina, Manguel describes the irreducible occasion in which he began to read: "The first word I read was BOVRIL, on a neon sign, illuminated from left to right: B, BO, BOV, BOVR, BOVRI, BOVRIL." The Just Like Me book situates Jordon's learning to read experience during Obama's election journey as if it were like Manguel's learning to read experience with the word BOVRIL. For young children of color to read their first word left to right: O, OB, OBA, OBAM, OBAMA on a billboard, in the newspaper, on the tv, at the White House, and in countless other combined text-image clusters, is to affirm, to elevate, and to spread the steadfast truth of those four words: "I am not alone." For the purpose of this book and this project, "just like me" and "I am not alone" are reflections of each other, rippling and echoing and boomeranging between the daily activities, events, and stories which shape our understanding of our world and of ourselves.
This moment is equally important for white children. It invites them, on subconscious and conscious levels, to confront and to reconsider the placement of people of color in books, movies, and other media, and in society while also calling white children to participate in the project of normalizing and maintaining cross-racial and cross-cultural friendships.
Just Like Me is also about learning to read and about the liberating qualities of entering other worlds through words. Reading is an incredibly public act, though it may have private origins for many of us. For example, I'll borrow from Alberto Manguel's heavily autobiographical and absolutely stunning book, A History of Reading, where he asserts that to read means to affirm, "I am not alone". Having grown up in Buenos Aires, Argentina, Manguel describes the irreducible occasion in which he began to read: "The first word I read was BOVRIL, on a neon sign, illuminated from left to right: B, BO, BOV, BOVR, BOVRI, BOVRIL." The Just Like Me book situates Jordon's learning to read experience during Obama's election journey as if it were like Manguel's learning to read experience with the word BOVRIL. For young children of color to read their first word left to right: O, OB, OBA, OBAM, OBAMA on a billboard, in the newspaper, on the tv, at the White House, and in countless other combined text-image clusters, is to affirm, to elevate, and to spread the steadfast truth of those four words: "I am not alone." For the purpose of this book and this project, "just like me" and "I am not alone" are reflections of each other, rippling and echoing and boomeranging between the daily activities, events, and stories which shape our understanding of our world and of ourselves.
Art featured on this page: blue and yellow watercolor, by Jordon. (2012). Books featured on this page: Whistle for Willie by Jack Ezra Keats; and Kenneth Grahame's The Wind and the Willows, adapted for graphic novel and illustrated by Michel Plessix.