A.M. Dassu, Author of Fight Back

Angie: Welcome to Book Bridges. The podcast of Word Bridge now igniting a passion for diverse literature through live online author meetups. Because words build bridges to unite. Book Bridges is brought to you by our partners at Leon Lo Books. I'm your host, Angie, Beumer Johnson WORD Bridge Now members gather monthly online to meet and to be inspired by diverse authors. What's coming up is just a taste of our full program with A. M. Dassu, author of Fight Back. After a devastating terrorist attack, aliya chooses to wear the hijab. And along with her friends, she chooses to fight back against injustices she faces and the hate groups rising in her town.

A.M. Dassu: Hi. Thank you so much, Angie. It's great to meet you all. It's just amazing to have, uh, all of us wanting to bite back together. Um, that is something that it's what I want. It's my dream. And it's great to be doing that today. So thank you. I should just say I'm as well known as Ambassadu. I also write nonfiction and fiction shows, books, and, um, bite, um, back when she can see the COVID Pools behind Me is about a girl who has everything, a great family, a great school, plans to go see her favorite Kpop band with her two best friends. And her life is turned upside down because, um, of an event at the concert, an attack at the concert, and her school world is rocked. And she has to decide whether she's going to accept how she's treated it or whether she's going to take action to challenge it. Then I talk a bit more about my book. So I say, I tell them that, you know, arya, uh, is 13 years old. She can't wait to go to the concert. And she is only really concerned with stories on the news about the rise of the far right, because hey, hidden affects her. That is, until a terrorist attack at the concert changes everything. And local racists find their voice and an antimuslim narrative starts cropping up at school and on the street. When Aria starts being bullied, she knows she has to do something to stand up for the hate. She decides that instead of hiding who she is, she's living begin wearing a hijab for the first time to challenge how people in her community see her. But when her school bans the hijab, and she's attacked and intimidated from making her choice, annie feels very alone. Um, can she find allies, friends to stand beside her and help her find ways to fight back? Um, and so in this story, arya is bullied for who she is and how she chooses to express herself. But she isn't alone in this. And did you know that expressing yourself is actually human rights? Um, United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child. It's an important agreement by countries who have promised to protect children's rights. And one of the human rights the agreement comes is that children have the right to use their own language, their culture and religion, even if those are not shared by most people in the country where they live. And, um, also, children can choose their own thoughts, their own opinions and religion. But this should not stop other people from enjoying their rights. Sometimes when people share their negative opinions and thoughts about someone else's identity, it can stop them from enjoying their right. And sadly, their right to express themselves isn't always respected. And instead, lots of young people are targeted and bullied for what they look like and who they are. And they're targeted and bullied sometimes because of what people have seen on the news, or because of the way that certain groups of people are described. And that's why I wrote bite back. I wrote it because the media has a lot to answer for. I wanted to write it because I wanted to put a spotlight on a community that is always in the news for the wrong reasons and explore what that might feel like in a school setting and as a family. I also wanted to explore what it feels like to struggle to express your identity and then find that courage to be proud of it, and to realize that you're not alone. There are so many others from all sorts of backgrounds, um, experiencing the same. But most of all, I wanted to show that when we come together, our voices are stronger. I wanted to show what it feels like to be bullied for being Muslim and also Jewish, black, Chinese from an LGBTQ plus background and also show what it feels like to be around a family member who has hateful views and how that can also impact your life even if you're not from a minority or a small community. And in this book, I wanted to reflect the experiences of those who have faced discrimination and for readers to experience and understand the impact of prejudice and bullying. So I wanted to challenge that narrative that being different or looking different means you're dangerous, and that we should all try and be and look the same. It's really amazing to see how this really opens up a, uh, conversation with young people, and they just feel so much more confident to share. And teachers, ah, have been very surprised as well with, um, how forthcoming they've been about what they've experienced. And, um, they see, like, with me, they'll ask me, did you get bullied? Or have you ever helped somebody? And, um, I, um, will tell them, look, I wasn't openly bullied at school. People questioned what I was wearing, um, but it wasn't sort of vicious, um, until after 911, because I'm old. After 911, I saw a massive shift in the way that I was looked at, even just going to, you know, the grocery store. I was very aware that people didn't really think that I was doing much with my life. Or achieving much or other trouble. Um, and it sort of set me up in a way. So I say to them, look, what you can do, what you should do is take that hate and, uh, put it into something positive, make a difference. And when you're successful, there's people that were, uh, giving it all that they'll be crying your success. Show them with your success. Just focus on something that you enjoy. Um, and for me, it was certainly going out there and, um, it's kind of what Arya does, just going out there and showing people that I'm not that I'm a Muslim, I'm visiting Muslim. Look, I'm smiling at you. This is one of the reasons I wrote it as well, because I also wanted kids who may have parents or family members that are leaning on the far right ideology or may say things to sort of feel like, look, Lisa also experienced this, and she didn't have to go with that. Hate by Dee. Hi.

Speaker C: Thank you so much for being here. I, uh, really enjoyed the conversation. I wrote down something you said, um, when you were talking about why you wrote the book. And you said, I wrote it because the media has something to answer for. Um, and it kind of put me into this spiral of thinking about how we write. And, um, for me, as, uh, a black woman and teaching black students, uh, de centering the white gaze and or the dominant gaze. And so my question is around your process, because, uh, we write autobiographies, and I find that a lot of the students feel that they have to center, uh, struggle. And what I feel kind of becomes this trauma porn, so to speak, because they feel like they're writing to this gaze of, uh, I'm only valuable if I speak about my trauma or if I speak about experiences that are racial right. And while those experiences are valid, and we do have to speak about those, I'm wondering, how do you balance honoring the human experience of just being a kid? Because oftentimes when we pick up books, particularly for black students, it's why is it always we had to march, we had to fight, we had to be sprayed down with hoses. Why can't we just double Dutch sometimes, right? So I'm wondering, how do you balance that childhood aspect of just innocent, fun family values, but also give light to some of those more traumatic things that we do experience? So it's not just the heavy trauma.

A.M. Dassu: Yeah. So I think I don't know if you read Going Everywhere, but wherever I just went all in and it was trauma, trauma, trauma, m trauma. And, um, because I wanted to make a point. That whole book was just making a point. It was just like, there is no us, and then that can happen to us, too. We can easily become refugees. Um, whereas with this one, I really wanted to sort of balance it with more humor and light hearted moments. And you'll see that, in fact, there are points where you might laugh, hopefully, um, or you have relief from alias, trauma with a kitten, et cetera. As adults, um, sometimes we seem to think that children know what's going on in the world. We want to keep them protected and we want to encourage them to enjoy their innocent years. But this isn't the reality. They've got access to Snapchat and Google and YouTube and, ah, Google events and what's happening in the news seeps into conversation. It seeps into their decision making. And, um, um, I do feel that they need to have access to literature like this because those that are experiencing it still seen, but I do want those that have not experienced it to see how it feels. So I've got so many white children that will the book's been, um, put forward for a lot of awards, school awards in the UK. And these kids are doing reviews and they're like, there's a lot of hate out there and we need to talk about it and they're really getting it. Um, so I do feel this is not everyone has that. Is it childhood where your parents are missing and you've got into the woods and the fairies and everything is great and likes of the adventure. Yes, there's a place for that kind of literature escapism. But I think we do need to have a balance and we need to have books like this too, so that we can have conversation. Because for me, growing up, I would definitely say the books that stayed with me were the books that we discussed at school. Um, there's this gap. Like, I read a few books when I was a primary kid and they're like really basic picture books that I remember, et cetera. And then there's this massive gap where I remember nothing, I don't remember books. And then I remember only two in high school, in middle grade and high school. And basically they were brave new world and, um uh roll of thunder hear my cry and, um, we read them in school and we discussed them and I was immersed in those books. I was like, when I was reading Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry, I read I read it in a Southern accent and annoyed everybody. They hated me. Like, oh, no, she's reading. I was so into it, you know, and for me, it was like they were life, like, Rollers under here, my friend, was life changing because it was like, look at how dignified this family is in this situation. That is just awful. It's horrible. Um, I feel like we need both types of books, but I would say definitely what I'm trying to do now is have, uh, more light hearted moments. Because life isn't just one part of trauma, as we know, like in Art with Fightback, you'll see that she has happy moments. She has a laugh with her friends and then she's completely, like, down because things had happened. And that's so real. It's us too. Like, one day you have it a good morning, and then you see something or someone says something, and then that's it. You're like and I just want kids to know that, yes, life throws a hell of a lot at you. But there's hope. There is always hope. And no matter what you're going through, you're not the first to go through it. And you will come through it. You will come through it. You just got to find your people, the right people, um, and find your strength. So I guess it's about giving that positive and hopeful message through the trauma. So hopefully maybe something will hit ability to navigate whatever comes to them.

Speaker D: I want to say thank you so much for the book. I'm halfway through reading it aloud with my ten year old daughter and, um, it's so fun because my husband's family is from India and my daughter's learning Hindi language and so all the Urdu words are so familiar to her and so it's just another point of connection. It's really fun to see. Um, we're not m Muslim, and yet there's this girl growing up in a different country in England, and yet you can definitely sense that she really identifies with her. So it's really wonderful to see her, um, connection with your character. Just speaking. I love the thought of Aliya ah, inspiring you too. But I can definitely see that for my daughter.

Speaker E: I'm also a Muslim woman and mother, so when I was growing up, I was the only hijabi, so I was the first exposure for peers around me and it was really intimidating. And I didn't have any books to read about my experience, so I felt like on the side, like alienated. But having like, this book, I can show my nieces because they're about the age, about coming now to start to wear the hedgehog. To give them a book like this is something that can help you and empower you through it really helps because if I tell her, it's going to be really hard. You can do it. It's different than giving her a book. Saying like this will empower you. This is what to do. So it's nice to have something to show her. It's not just us. Other people are going through it too.

A.M. Dassu: Thank, uh, you so much. That's so nice to hear. And yeah, I want kids to really feel confident in who they are, whether they were hijab, whether they look different, whatever. I just really want them to own their identities and go forward being proud of who they are. It's okay. It's okay to be you. It's okay to be different. And, um, you're going to be okay.

Angie: If you wish you'd been here with as for the full program to ask questions of your own, become a member at wordbridgenow.com and join the conversation with our upcoming authors. See the link in the show. Notes thanks again to A. M. Dassu and to our partners at Lee and Low Books in the spirit of words as Bridges. Take care.

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