DEI Archives

As writers we always hear, “Write what you know.” In light of that truth, it is important that any person writing about Native Americans know the people and the culture they are writing about. It is important to know the current situation of the Native American people one is choosing to write about. It is also important to recognize that some things cannot, or should not, be written about given…

In January 2020, the novel American Dirt by Jeanine Cummins hit bookstores after months of positive reviews and being selected to Oprah’s Book Club. Then Latinx critics called out the book detailing a Mexican bookseller crossing the U.S. border to escape a drug cartel as perpetuating harmful stereotypes. Cummins is not Mexican, although claims Puerto Rican heritage, and critics repeated what th…

Like many children, I (Nikoo) was a voracious reader growing up, and my favorite books were those in which I could see myself. I was born in Iran. My parents were Muslim, but we also had family members who practiced Judaism, Christianity, and Bahá’í, and we had our share of atheists. We respected and embraced all beliefs. My initial awareness of a lack of representation in literature happened w…

Although often attributed to Winston Churchill, the origin of the phrase “history is written by the victors” is unknown. Nonetheless, the sentiment is true and something to consider when writing about diversity, past and present. It is a fundamental tenant of the mindset one should have when diving into the scholarly record. I wish to take you into my philosophy of how I approach history, peopl…

It would be impossible to sit down and list every LGBTQ+ stereotype that might pop up in a work of fiction. For one thing, stereotypes change as society changes, and they can be hard to pin down, it’s more a feeling you get while reading than a specific image. A stereotype might only be noticeable to someone from the group being depicted, which means that authors writing outside their own exper…

In today’s fast-paced society, it’s extremely common to shorten or truncate language in order to get a message across quickly and efficiently. We can see this penchant for abbreviation in things like the 250-character tweet or text messages filled with linguistic acronyms meant to convey broad meanings with as few letters as possible. While code-switching can truncate language, it is much more …