Local News |

UMass Lowell professors work to increase access, understanding with Asian folktale book

LOWELL — When she and her colleagues first began researching Asian folktales, UMass Lowell psychology professor emerita Allyssa McCabe heard the Cambodian tale about a man afraid of lawsuits and another afraid of poop.

She was pretty surprised to find the two topics in a children’s story but was even more shocked when she realized Western European teachers — and historic fairytale writers, such as the Brothers Grimm — would forgo the poop imagery altogether when retelling the tale.

It was McCabe’s goal to address children’s cultural differences by incorporating these stories in the classroom, so she and MinJeong Kim, associate professor of language arts and literacy, set out to do just that.

Their latest work, “Perspectives on East and Southeast Asian Folktales,” weaves together those classic stories from Cambodian, Vietnamese, Chinese, Korean, Japanese, Burmese and Laotian culture and examines the morals, themes, religious values and storytelling devices to explain their importance and purpose.

McCabe and Kim celebrated the book, published in August 2022, at a public launch hosted by the Center for Asian American Studies at UMass Lowell’s Coburn Hall Tuesday evening, inviting their five other collaborators from across the world to join them online for a chapter-by-chapter presentation.

Increasing access and exposure to stories from different ethnic communities allows students to become more familiar and comfortable with cultural differences, which is something McCabe is deeply passionate about.

“We’ve known for a long time that kids really benefit and do better at acquiring literacy if they are given reading materials that are relevant to their backgrounds, their families,” McCabe said in an interview, “but that’s kind of hard to come by, especially in the case of the Southeast Asian groups where books were burned and that sort of thing.”

After receiving the Creative Economy Grant from the UMass President’s office in 2016, the two authors began gathering a series of Asian folktales to turn into a picture book for children, reaching out to Lowell’s vast Asian American community.

That venture turned into “A Long, Long Time Ago in Southeast Asia,” a 2018 book that tells each story in English and in its native language.

While that storybook is now incorporated in some K-12 curricula, their work was far from over.

“When I first started this project, to pick up a Burmese folktale book, I had to go to London… It was that difficult,” Kim said during the presentation. “The children, not only Cambodian American children but all students of color, need to see themselves in where they learn and where they live.”

In her book, Kim explores the Korean concept of “nunchi,” a sophisticated, nonverbal practice of evaluating others’ “eye measure,” or “what is hidden between the lines of the uttered words,” Kim said.

Nunchi is a major part of Korean learning, Kim said, and teachers use the narrative tool to help students regulate emotions and develop a skill pivotal to success in Korean society.

“If you have Korean children who just migrated to the U.S., you will probably describe them as quiet and not very active or outspoken, somewhat passive, but it’s evidence of their language and socialization process,” Kim said. “They’re not being just quiet and passive, they are being considerate and empathetic because that’s the way they were socialized.”

For Juwen Zhang, professor of Chinese studies at Willamette University, folktales establish identity and social values, which in turn help the fight against stereotypes and racism.

As a collaborator on “Perspectives on East and Southeast Asian Folktales,” Zhang also looked at the lack of Asian American views in fairytale studies, which is harmful, given that books like “The Five Chinese Brothers” can reinforce those stereotypes.

“Folktales are an art of subversion and resistance to social injustice,” Zhang said. “They are the ways for individuals and groups to maintain their identity.”

Violence is also a common element in some Southeast Asian folktales, but is often used not to harm children but to be of value to them, explained fellow collaborator Charlotte Wilinsky of Holyoke Community College. One Burmese folktale, “The Story of Cuckoo Bird,” warns children of the dangers of sleepovers, as the story follows a child who is beaten and beheaded by robbers, Wilinsky said.

The talk resonated with Louly Sam, a sophomore studying accounting at UMass Lowell, whose parents immigrated from Cambodia. Though she was born and raised in Lowell, Sam said it’s been difficult navigating her Cambodian heritage with American culture.

“If I had a book like that growing up, or if it was taught in English language arts, I feel like it would have helped me feel less of a sore thumb,” Sam said.

During his American history classes, Berklee College of Music sophomore Kody Pailin, of Lowell, said he would skip right to the textbook’s index to find Cambodia and do the research on his own. It’s, thankfully, different for students now, he said.

“I love learning about this, but it felt very saddening for me to have to do it by myself then being able to share it with all my other peers,” Pailin said. “Now that the younger generation gets to learn about it, it’s more empowering because they don’t have to go out of their way to search for themselves.”