It's YOUR choice: 10,000 Books into Landfills or the Hands of Indigenous Learners?

[Ulysses]

Hello Jackie!

At first, I was worried about those 10,000 books that might end up in American landfills instead of in the hands of Indigenous Learners, and then I started thinking, and the thinking led me to realize that I don't have enough information to know whether or not I should worry:

Are we talking about 10,000 copies of a single book, 10,000 different books, or something in between? The fewer the number of different books, the more important it is to know which books they are, what they are about, what do they say, who wrote them, and when? This is important because quite a few books are so bad that the best possible use for them is, in fact, landfill. Many people I know are convinced that approximately 90% of all books ever published fall into this category, and although I think they are being excessively critical, they do have a point: For instance, if the books are about how to invest in the stock market, or get dates with women, or travel in Europe for only $100 a day, use DOS 6.0, or write computer programs in Basic, it might be best to send them to the landfill.

The larger the number of different books, the more important it is to know if they are all going to one group of Indigenous Learners, or various groups - and if it is one group, what makes them so special? Why them, and not some other group? If it is various groups, how will it be determined which books to send to which groups? If it is taken to the extreme, and 10,000 different books are to be put in the hands of 10,000 different Indigenous Learners, how will the subject of the book be matched to what the Indigenous Learner who receives it is trying to learn?

Since these bilingual books are coming from the US, I assume they are bilingual in the sense of being in English & Spanish. But the Indigenous people of Mexico grow up speaking languages like Nahuatl, Quechua, Aymara, Guaran?, P'urh?pecha, Chichimeca, or Otom?, among many others. The primary challenge they face is to learn Spanish in order to better fend for themselves in the dominant Spanish-speaking society which surrounds them. Providing them with English/Spanish bilingual books will be about as helpful to them as Russian/Arabic bilingual books would be to us, if we were trying to learn either of those languages...

Hopefully, the bilingual books that are being offered contain information that will be relevant and helpful to Indigenous Mexicans, are in Spanish/Nahuatl, Quechua, Aymara, Guaran?, P'urh?pecha, Chichimeca, &/or Otom?, etc., and will be sorted and directed as appropriate. If this is the case, I will sign the petitions you recommend with great enthusiasm - Otherwise, I'm not sure I understand the point.