Manmay LaKay Magazine Issue 2 April 2018 | Page 48

I realized that not only were my children affected by the lack of indigenous literature, but all children born in the diaspora were similarly affected. So, 20 years ago I made it a goal to write children’s stories that highlighted typical experiences of children in St. Lucia and the Caribbean. Ahh, the saying "it doesn't matter how slowly you go as long as you do not stop," springs to mind... My third reason for writing these books is as an educator, I realized the importance of reading and literacy in human development, but discovered that many children from minority cultures had limited culturally relevant literature to pique their interest in reading and motivate them to want to read. Most of the reading material  available to them were about people that did not look like them and were not of their culture. That sent the message that their culture was not significant or important enough to write about.  And if your culture and your origins are not important to write about, perhaps you are not important  as a product of your culture, and therefore you abandon your cultural heritage and try to become someone else.  It struck me that there was a strong connection between culturally relevant literature and cultural identity. I therefore decided that writing culturally relevant literature was a very important way of nurturing our cultural self. Very fair point. Culturally relevant literature nurtures ourselves and others by reflecting, highlighting, validating and celebrating interesting, beautiful, valuable, inspiring aspects of our daily lives and experiences. Writing and sharing indigenous literature is just a small contribution to help our people nurture themselves culturally.  Oh my – so very powerful and true. I tip my hat off to you for recognizing