By Randall Yip, AsAmNews Executive Editor
The president and CEO of Scholastic Books is acknowledging that the company was “wrong and not in keeping with Scholastic’s values” when it asked an author to remove references to racism in her story about her grandparents at the Minidoka Incarceration Camp.
In a message to his employees made available to AsAmNews by Scholastic, President and CEO Peter Warwick wrote “We don’t want to diminish or in any way minimize the racism that tragically persists against Asian-Americans.”
RELATED: Author rejects demand to remove the word “racism” from her book
The controversy erupted after the children’s book publisher offered to license Love in the Library by Maggie Tokuda-Hall for its collection of Asian American Native Hawaiian Pacific Islander Heritage Collection. Tokuda-Hall’s book had originally been published last year by Candlewick.
However, Scholastic’s offer came with one condition-that Tokuda-Hall edit her author notes that drew parallels with what happened with the incarceration of Japanese Americans during World War II to racism in the 21st century and also the uptick of banned books across the country.
“What is particularly bogging to me about this offensive offer is that-in so many bans-books about Japanese incarceration are included, the author wrote in her blog-Pretty OK Maggie. Baseball Saved Us: banned. They Called Us the Enemy: banned. Regardless of this commentary like mine, our stories have already been deemed dangerous.”
The message appears to have resonated with Scholastic’s Warwick.
He has reached out to Tokuda-Hall’s publisher, Candlewick, to apologize to Tokuda-Hall and all those who worked on her book. It is offering to reopen negotiations “and still be able to share this important story about Tokuda-Hall’s grandparents, who met in a WWII incarceration camp, with the author’s note unchanged.”
He has also reached out to other authors already part of Scholastic’s AANHPI Collection to “apologize for our actions in seeking to change the author’s note, to hear their most recent thoughts, and to answer their questions and concerns.”
So far there’s no response from Tokuda-Hall about whether she will accept Scholastic’s offer to reopen negotiations.
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It is good to see the president of Scholastic Books publicly apologize and recognize how wrong that was. Did they apologize and reprint for any other Asian American authors who followed those demands for repression just to be published? It is time to stop denying the historic and ongoing racism towards people of Asian descent.