May-Lee Chai
TRANSLATES: Chinese
May-lee Chai is a writer and educator. She was born in California but has lived in more than 14 states in the U.S. and four countries. She has a Master’s degree in East Asian Studies from Yale University and received her B.A. degree from Grinnell College in French and Chinese Studies. She also completed a second Master’s in English-Creative Writing from the University of Colorado in Boulder. Chai began her writing career as a reporter for the Associated Press. Chai is the recipient of a National Endowment for the Arts Grant in Literature:Fellowship in Prose among other writing awards. Chai began her writing career as a reporter for the Associated Press.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
My Lucky Face (Soho Press, 1997) The Girl From Purple Mountain (co-authored with her father, Winberg Chai; St. Martin's Press, 2001) Glamorous Asians: Short Stories and Essays (University of Indianapolis Press, 2004) Hapa Girl: A Memoir (Temple University Press, 2007) China A to Z (co-authored with Winberg Chai; Plume, 2007) Her next book is a translation from the Chinese of The Autobiography of Ba Jin, one of China's most influential 20th century authors. (Forthcoming, University of Indianapolis Press, 2008) She has published numerous short stories in various literary journals and anthologies.
MOST RECENT BLOG POST [View All Posts]
Thursday, October 11, 2007 2:21PM
Banned Books
I read recently a list of titles of children's books and young adult books that had been banned, and I wonder what country I'm living in. Gay penguins are too dangerous to read about? Books that contain words that in a different context would be harmful but between their covers give me the power to understand where racism came from historically?
I remember rather fondly reading all sorts of wondrously devious and perhaps deviant books and short stories when I was in elementary school in the 70s and junior high in the 1980s. What would have become of me if I hadn't been allowed to read these books? Is sexual content so dangerous in the age of AIDS that reading a book about a young person's coming of age (to use that old cliche) that we must ban a book? Is rape going to be eradicated if all books that contain a rape scene are removed from school libraries?
I must buy copies of Beloved by Toni Morrison and Mark Mathabane's Kaffir Boy and Mark Twain's Huckleberry Finn immediately and give them out as Christmas presents to all the young people I know.
And now I've read that teachers do not have the right to express a personal opinion in their classrooms in public school! The Supreme Court allowed this ruling to stand by refusing to hear the case of a Bloomington, IN, schoolteacher who was asked by a student during a classroom discussion if she'd ever participated in a peace protest. She replied, "I honk for peace." How truly dangerous! Obviously this woman is a danger to our children! The school district refused to renew her contract, a federal appeals court ruled she did not have the right to free speech in her classroom.
Do students have a right to express their opinions? If they ask the teacher a question, should the teacher's response in a classroom be, "I cannot tell you what I personally think or believe"? Isn't the implication that our young people are so stupid that they won't be able to think for themselves?
This is certainly NOT the way a democracy should function.
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