Renowned scholar frames hard social issues in fiction – Monterey Herald

Family History in Black and White

Fiction is, by definition, prose that describes imaginary events and people. However, since most fiction authors write from what they feel, what they’ve experienced, what they know, some would argue that there’s no such thing as fiction.

Dr. Christine Sleeter writes her novels from truth. At least as far as her message is concerned. Everything else is made up. But it could be true because this stuff happens.

In “Family History in Black and White,” published by Brill Sense in 2021, Sleeter tells the story of two urban high school teachers, both seemingly qualified for the position each seeks as superintendent of schools. The issue is not whether the candidates ─ Roxanne who is Black and Ben who is white ─ think they can do the job but whether each will get the recognition they crave and deserve, or if race will intervene.

Although Brill is a leading international publisher in the Humanities, Social Sciences, and additional academic subjects, Sleeter has used other academic publishers in the release of more than 20 academic books, among them, “Critical Race Theory and its Critics,” coauthored with Francesca López and published April 28 by Teachers College Press.

Critical race theory is, essentially, the study of how social and political movements, laws, and the media both shape and are shaped by perceptions of ethnicity and race ─ and how that sifts onto the daily dynamics of humanity. Sleeter, a founding faculty member of CSU Monterey Bay, from which she is a Professor Emerita from the College of Education and Professional Studies, has devoted her career to this examination and resulting discussions.

“Authors are supposed to write about what we know. This,” she said, “is what I know, what I have explored, for decades. What prompted me as far back as the early 1970s was when I signed up for a teacher education program to prepare teachers to work in urban schools. As I became acquainted with teachers, I started reading ethnic studies books to understand their perspectives, particularly African American educators and other educators of color. I stuck with my studies.”

Highly educated, interested and aware

Having earned a bachelor’s degree in political science from Willamette University, Sleeter went on to Central Washington University, where she earned a second bachelor’s degree in secondary education, in 1972. Five years later, she earned her master’s degree in curriculum and instruction from Seattle University followed, in 1982, by a Ph.D. in the field, from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Throughout her education and through teaching, she developed an interest in multi-cultural education, which can be defined as strategies to teach a diversity of students, to teach students about the diverse histories, cultures, and races among different groups, to create equal educational opportunities for students of diverse backgrounds, or all of the above.  Sleeter then joined the faculty at Ripon College in Wisconsin and the University of Wisconsin-Parkside.

In 1995, she noticed an ad in the Chronicle of Higher Education that a new California State University campus, CSU Monterey Bay, was being established on the old Fort Ord acreage. Drawn to a university planning to teach multi-culturalism, ethnic studies and global studies in a nontraditional way, she and her late partner Dr. Joe Larkin applied to join the faculty. Ultimately, both were hired. Sleeter retired from CSUMB in 2003 but has continued teaching, as a speaker and visiting professor around the world, and through the creative voice of an author.

“Renowned for the development and advancement of educational frameworks beneficial to K-12 students across socio-cultural divides, Dr. Sleeter has the rare ability to open hearts and minds through her narrative and scholarly gifts,” said CSUMB Professor Emerita Dr. Josina Makau. “Never before have her deep insights into the nature and value of multicultural education initiatives been more needed.”

The challenge of making up true stories

Sleeter has published three novels, including “White Bread’ (2015) in which a young protagonist explores the history of her family, of herself and of the bicultural community where she teaches, from the outside looking in, followed by a second edition in 2020. In 2018, she published “The Inheritance,” in which a woman wrestles with the conundrum of inheriting something that didn’t rightfully belong to those who left it to her. And, in 2021, she released “Family History in Black and White.” Sleeter has been asked by followers who have read her fiction and nonfiction works, if she ever wants to write her own memoir. The answer is always no.

“I don’t want to write a memoir,” she said, “because I can be more honest in fiction. If I were to start talking about my family members, then I’d spend the whole time trying to protect people. The closest I came was in writing family stories for my siblings, sticking to what the data says to create as accurate a picture of the family tree as I could get.”

While she admits to a fair amount of fictionalizing, the hardest part of writing each book, says Sleeter, is that the truth of each story, inherent in the physical and emotional pain her characters go through, is painful to write.

“I learn what people have gone through by reading history, asking questions,” she said. “It’s hard to take in, but to be accurate, it’s an essential piece of the story to write. And what I realized is that, for white people, this inherited pain and shame may even get built into our genetic structure, a field of study called epigenetics. If we don’t do something about it, we just keep passing it on.”

In “Family History in Black and White,” this prompts primary character “Ben” to think about how he’s raising his two sons, what he’s passing on to them, says Sleeter, and how he would like them to be in an ethnically diverse world. His own evolution has motivated him to expose his children to the world, rather than protecting them from it.

“Having done a lot of academic writing,” said Sleeter, “I started asking myself how I could write in a way that the issues I care about could become accessible to the general public. I started turning the stories I’ve been telling in talks into fiction. It’s harder than one might think. Learning to write fiction has been an uphill climb but definitely along an interesting route.”

“Family History in Black and White,” as well as other books by Sleeter, are available through River House Books at The Crossroads Carmel, and via Amazon.