Iris Jacob is the take-charge type of teen who protests injustice when she sees it, builds coalitions where there are none and writes the kind of book she always wanted to read.
After reading “Reviving Ophelia,” largely considered the definitive text about adolescent girls, and the widely popular response “Ophelia Speaks,” a compilation of teen girls writing about themselves, Jacob, 18, realized something was missing: the voices of girls of color.
So the high school senior from South Dakota decided to fill the void by creating a space where teenage girls of color could write about issues unique to them. The result is “My Sisters’ Voices: Teenage Girls of Color Speak Out” (Owl Books, $13), a collection of poems and essays by African-American, Latino, Asian American, Native American and self-identified multiracial teens. Jacob’s mom is white and her dad is West Indian.
The young writer snagged an agent (the same one used by “Ophelia Speaks” author Sara Shandler ), a publisher (Henry Holt) and edited the volume that includes 80 contributors. “My Sisters’ Voices” is a powerful peek into the lives of teens at a crossroads–girls on the cusp of womanhood grappling with racism, sexism, heritage, poverty, family and self-image in a world where they are largely unheard.
“I’m not a writer but I was really empowered by the idea of doing this. There weren’t any other books like this out there and I felt an overwhelming need to have that for myself,” Jacob said last week while in town for a reading at Women and Children First bookstore.
“As far as popular culture goes, girls of color don’t have a voice. I think Britney Spears is being listened to much more than I am,” Jacob said.
Jacob, who will attend Wesleyan University in Connecticut in the fall, sent “thousands” of query letters and e-mails to English teachers, poets and other writers asking for submissions. The response–andthe task of wading through some 500 entries–overwhelmed her.
Jacob’s selection of contributors includes several Chicago-area young women, including Jade Pagkas-Bather of Lakeview and Jessica Farley of Homewood. They appeared with Jacob and read their entries to a racially diverse crowd of about 60 people at the bookstore.
Pagkas-Bather, an 18-year-old senior in Lincoln Park High School’s International Baccalaureate program, submitted “The Color Line,” a poem about the Red Line elevated train and a biracial female’s self-exploration.
“I rode it all the way to 95th and back, just to think, and I kind of wrote what I observed and felt about how people of different colors interact on the train without even saying anything,” said Pagkas-Bather, whose mother is Jamaican and father is Greek.
Farley, now 20 and a sophomore at Illinois State University, contributed a passage, written when she was 18, titled “I Put on a Mask.” It was a reponse to a former boyfriend who felt she never opened up.
“I realized I couldn’t let him love me because I didn’t love myself enough,” Farley said. “I think a lot of girls can relate to that.”
Mayra Hernandez, 16, one of a group of sophomores from Cristo Rey High School who attended the reading, said she was inspired by Jacob and the other contributors.
“I used to keep journals and then I stopped. Now that I have heard them telling us about how they felt and going through their own situations, it made me feel like I could express myself again,” Hernandez said.
Pagkas-Bather said she believes the book ultimately will have a powerful impact on readers.
“The world needs to know that we have a voice. We’re always thought to not have a voice, or a very silent voice, and I think that’s a misconception,” she said. “We’re loud and we’re booming and what we have to say is important.”
In my 6th grade year I made friends with a Latina girl named Rosa. Our friendship stemmed from our similar treatment by the whites at our school; we both dealt with the issues of identity, power and culture. By 8th grade Rosa had been suspended four times and then switched schools. Her method of coping had been retaliating, tell the white people how she really felt. One day in the hall she told me she wanted to hit “this stupid lil’ white girl.” I told her to do what she wanted (I’ll admit I wanted her to) and then she did. She grabbed the girl by her long blond hair, swung her around, and slapped her. Rosa’s anger was not at this particular white girl. Her anger was within. She was furious that she was forced to be the translator between her parents and the rest of the city. She was angry that she had to continuously deal with the young white girls and their problems, which she felt were petty compared to her own.
–Iris Jacob, in her introduction to “My Sisters’ Voices”
I sit in the middle of the train car
Significance?–maybe
Just another Black/White baby
I’m riding the color line
Because it amuses me
Because Black people understand
Me the best way they know how
Because White people abuse me
In their quest to remain P.C. . . .
If I go home
Will that be my way of peeling off my colors?
–Jade Pagkas-Bather, from her poem “The Color Line”
I am afraid that if I give you my heart, you will stomp on it. I am afraid that if I give you my innocence, you will turn it into guilt. I am afraid that if I show you laughter, you will bring me tears. I am afraid that if I let you inside, you will break me and not stick around to fix it.
–Jessica Farley, from her essay “I Put on a Mask”
