Dancing Home

Margie is determined to be as ‘American' as she can and when her non-English speaking cousin joins her at school she is mortified to be associated with her. She's done her best to erase her Mexican heritage from the eyes of her fellow classmates and all Lupe is doing is shining a light on their ethnicity. And not only is she getting teased at school, but she finds herself being left out at home as well with her parents speaking more Spanish to her cousin than English to her.

Just like American Born Chinese, you have characters who want to strip away their culture to fit in with who they think everyone is. And just like Jin Wang, Margie discovers that maybe she's missing out by denying her culture.

I loved this book in the way that I checked it out from the library again so Emma could read it. I want her to read about what it's like to be different so that maybe she can recognize that in others as well as appreciating her ethnicity and what it means to be Mexican or Japanese, or Irish or English or whatever!