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dystopian

Send in the Clones: Two YA Novels' Treatment of Race, Gender, and Cloning

Girls of Color in Dystopia post by Victoria Law on May 17, 2013 - 1:50pm; tagged dystopian, immigration, science fiction, YA fiction.

The Lost Girl cover

People of color are often seen as the exceptions in predominantly white societies' mass media, like US literature. Let's look at race and gender in two dystopic young adult scenarios in which the exceptional group is not people of color, but clones they've created.

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YA Book "What's Left of Me" is a Dystopian Take on Nationalist Fervor

Girls of Color in Dystopia post by Victoria Law on May 13, 2013 - 2:26pm; tagged dystopian, immigration, Race, science fiction, xenophobia, YA fiction.

What's left of Me cover

"If you see something, say something" has been the slogan for buses, trains, and airports since 9/11. It's been used to justify increased surveillance and targeting of Muslims and people from the Middle East. After the Boston bombing, we've seen it used to mislabel the suspected Boston bomber as a "dark-skinned male" and later to misidentify Sunil Tripathi by Reddit users.

Kat Zhang's What's Left of Me takes the mass suspicion, xenophobia, and hysteria that's become normalized since 9/11 and sets it in an alternate United States where people are born with two personalities inside one body.

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Can a Society Run by Women Still Be a Dystopia?

Girls of Color in Dystopia post by Victoria Law on May 9, 2013 - 9:36am; tagged Brazil, dystopian, girls of color, matriarchy, Summer Prince, women of color, YA fiction.

The summer prince cover: a girl of color has a computer arm

Continuing along this guest blog series' theme of class, caste and slavery, let's look at a city run by women of color in Alaya Dawn Johnson's The Summer Prince.

The book's society, seen through the eyes of young main character June Canto, is a clear critique of class and race dynamics that exist today. As in our real world culture today, the people at the top of The Summer Prince's society refuse to recognize the oppression that exists their literally pyramid-shaped city.

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Reading "Tankborn"— A YA Book About Race, Class, and Caste

Girls of Color in Dystopia post by Victoria Law on May 2, 2013 - 12:00pm; tagged American history, caste, class, dystopian, indentured servants, India, Race, skin color, slavery, women of color, YA fiction.

tankborn cover

In Karen Sander's dystopian young adult book Tankborn, the world is a stringent caste system where race and origins determine all status. Tankborn was a hit and the sequel, Awakening, just came out this April, which means now is a great time to discuss the race and gender angle of the book. 

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Dystopian Book "Partials" Imagines a Society of Forced Pregnancy

Girls of Color in Dystopia post by Victoria Law on April 29, 2013 - 12:05pm; tagged dystopian, reproductive justice, reproductive rights, women of color, YA fiction.

Partials cover

I've never been attracted to books set in a world in which women have been stripped of their reproductive rights and function mainly as breeders. After all, I live in a very real society in which women's rights over their bodies are constantly being eroded. The right to family seems to not apply to those who are poor, of color and/or incarcerated. So why escape to a world in which all of these injustices have been magnified?

The cover of Dan Well's Partials depicts the back of a dark-haired girl of ambivalent skin color looking out over a wasteland. Nothing in the summary indicates that there are people of color in the book. To the jaded reader, Partials might very well be yet another book in which people of color have not survived the apocalypse. I wouldn't have picked up Partials for this blog series on race and gender in dystopia had my twelve-year-old daughter not read and recommended it, letting me know that the main character is <gasp> a girl of color. And she's not the only girl of color who's survived dystopia.

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New Book "Orleans" Imagines a World Where Blood Type Matters More than Race

Girls of Color in Dystopia post by Victoria Law on April 23, 2013 - 3:56pm; tagged dystopian, Katrina, New Orleans, people of color, Race, YA fiction.

Orleans book cover

"After the storm deaths came other casualties: deaths by debris, cuts, tetanus, or loss of blood; suicide, heart attacks caused by stress or loss, or stress of rebuilding, or just as often from the lack of medicines used to treat common ailments. The list of no-longer-treatable diseases grew: diabetes, asthma, cancer. Domestic violence rose, along with murder."

So begins the new book Orleans. Author Sherri L. Smith adds a dystopic twist to the post-Katrina disaster tale we (unfortunately) have come to know so well.

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Dystopian Book "Shadows Cast By Stars" Revolves Around Aboriginal Race and Identity

Girls of Color in Dystopia post by Victoria Law on April 18, 2013 - 3:19pm; tagged dystopian, gender roles, Idle No More, indigenous people, Race, YA fiction.

Shadows cast by Stars cover

When I started this column on race in dystopian YA literature, a reader recommended I check out Shadows Cast by Stars, Métis author Catherine Knutsson's dystopic tale set on Canada's western coast 200 years from now.

In the book, a plague has ravaged the world. The only cure is antibodies found in the blood of aboriginal people (or "Others" as they are known by non-aboriginals).

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Finally! In "Immortal Rules," One Girl of Color Survives Dystopia

Girls of Color in Dystopia post by Victoria Law on April 12, 2013 - 12:27pm; tagged Asian women, dystopian, Ethnicity, Race, romance, vampires, YA fiction.

The cover of The Immortal Rules

I’ve never read a single books published by romance giant Harlequin and so I carried Julie Kagawa’s The Immortal Rules to the library checkout counter with some trepidation. Would this be a romance novel with a veneer of vampire smeared on top?
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A 15-Year-Old's Vision of Public School Dystopia

Girls of Color in Dystopia post by Victoria Law on April 10, 2013 - 11:25am; tagged dystopian, education, New York City, school, science fiction, teenagers.

Truancy cover

Last week, I looked at how Malinda Lo and Marie Lu, adult Asian-American authors, wrote race and gender into their worlds. In this post, let's look at how a NYC Asian high school student writes race and gender in his dystopia.

Fifteen-year-old Isamu Fukui wrote Truancy while attending Stuyvesant High School, one of New York City's most competitive and demanding public high schools. In many ways, the book reads as a critique of the public school system.

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Reading Race in Marie Lu's Dystopian YA Hit "Legend"

Girls of Color in Dystopia post by Victoria Law on April 5, 2013 - 12:36pm; tagged dystopian, Ethnicity, Marie Lu, Race, YA fiction.

legend cover

When I checked Marie Lu's Legend out of the library, I hoped that the main girl character (June) would be Asian. After all, Lu herself is Chinese, born in China and influenced, as a young child, by the 1989 Tiananmen Square student protests. From the age of five, she lived in the U.S. and, unless she lived in an alternate U.S., probably also didn't see herself reflected in the books on her library and school shelves. So wouldn't she use this opportunity to add one more Asian girl to YA litdom?

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