Return to the March 1996 Table of ContentsBy B.J. Novitski
B.J. Novitski, a writer in Eugene, Ore., is a frequent contributor to Electronic School.
Recent movies and perceptions about computer users might lead us to believe that the Internet is the domain of white, male "propeller heads." Such a stereotype might have been true 10 years ago, or even five, but it's certainly not true now. According to a poll conducted last fall by Nielsen Media Research, about a third of all visitors to the Internet are female. And if Internet offerings reflect their target audiences, a growing percentage of users are black, Hispanic, and a rich mix of other ethnicities.
The number of World Wide Web "sites" that are explicitly multicultural has mushroomed in the past year or two. To minority youth--and to schools seeking to nurture them--these sites offer information, practical assistance, and moral support. And perhaps surprisingly, the sites go further than the conventional media in painting a comprehensive picture of diversity in the United States.
Because the Internet began as a government-sponsored research tool, a disproportionate number of Web sites are still based in universities. Many of these sites are of potential interest to high schoolers. For example, a student looking for an ethnically diverse college can browse through college and university Web sites to evaluate the cultural activities of student groups on campus.
Younger students wishing to learn about the history of blacks in America can seek out relevant "exhibits" of text and photographs, such as those prepared by the Library of Congress. Or, from Web sites created by various cultural organizations, they can learn about Chinese theater or Native American dance. Teachers can find bibliographies of multicultural books and bilingual materials for students of all ages. They also can learn where to go for summer workshops for multicultural teacher training.
To Courtney Oldham, a student whose Hopi/Hispanic/Anglo background posed questions that weren't being answered within her predominantly white high school in Boulder, Colo., the Internet has made a world of difference. "You can't find multicultural resources in history books," she says. "But when I started surfing the Internet, I found resources from all over and people interested in the same things I am. I felt I was connecting with the rest of the world."
For example, Oldham was able to learn more about the Hopi than she'd found in books, and she was able to "chat" with others about the special issues related to having a racially mixed background. When she was troubled by a class discussion on the Holocaust, in which her minority perspective set her apart from the rest of the class, she was able to talk it over on-line; she learned to accept that such differences in perspective would be part of her life beyond high school discussions. In anticipation of college, Oldham is now scanning the Web for minority scholarship opportunities. And she conducts frequent on-line searches for specific information related to class assignments.
A search across the Web for multiculturalism yields a broad range of resources. Related sites tend to fall into several general categories. Some sites are simply lists of links to other sites. One of the best known of those is Yahoo, a very large index organized by topic that includes links to African American, Asian American, Hispanic, and Native American sites. These lists are a good place to start a multicultural-themed browsing session. Some links take the browser beyond U.S. national boundaries to cultural centers in Africa, South America, and Asia.
Another common kind of Web site is one by an organization whose activities exist primarily off the Web. Such sites generally offer contact data and descriptions of the organization and its members, activities, and projects. But to find the main content--the groups' activities--you must attend the more traditional forums of classrooms, boardrooms, or theaters. One example of this is the Multicultural Alliance, which originated in the San Francisco Bay area but is growing nationwide. The mission of the alliance is to help its members, public and private schools, cultivate and support their racial, cultural, and ethnic diversity. The group's minority teacher development program, for example, recruits and supports minority college students who serve as intern teachers.
A second example of such a site is offered by the Asian Story Theater, a nonprofit organization in San Diego, Calif. This group uses live theater as a medium for both education and entertainment, to broaden multicultural awareness and understanding among children and teachers by dramatizing modern and classic Asian tales.
Many Web sites that originate in colleges and universities include pages about various student groups. Depending on the size and activity level of the minority student population, such sites can be quite extensive. The site at Stanford University, for example, hosts El Centro Chicano, a page that unites the school's Chicanos and Latinos and celebrates and promotes their history, contributions, growth, and empowerment. To see whether a local college supports similar groups, look for it in the index of American universities.
Another kind of Web resource is comparable to a traditional library's reference section. For example, a parent or teacher can find an on-line bibliography of children's books from the Multicultural Publishing and Education Council. A high school student can learn about scholarship opportunities by searching the Index of Minority Scholarships and Fellowships and the Minority On-line Information Service. Minority college students who are studying education can learn about teacher training programs and resources for English-as-a-Second-Language activities at Bilingual Education Resources on the Net.
Arguably more interesting than Web sites that primarily point to off-line resources are those that contain substantive content within their own pages. Because the Web is based on multimedia, well-developed sites can include not only text but photographs, music, children's drawings, and video clips. Such colorful material is invaluable when a teacher wants to describe to curious children the richness of unknown cultures. For example, an elementary student who is writing a report on the Sioux Nation can find on the Web a chronology of Sioux history from 1800, when the Sioux dominated the northern Plains, through the Battle of Little Big Horn and other 19th century efforts to protect their land, and the American Indian Movement's occupation of the village of Wounded Knee 20 years ago, to the declaration of the Century of Reconciliation in 1991. To give television-bred children a greater sense of reality for this distinctly non-Hollywood history, the Web site includes illustrated traditional stories and images of Sioux art, traditional dances, and Dakota landscapes.
Another rich and diverse Web site is a Library of Congress exhibit called "The African-American Mosaic: Resource Guide for the Study of Black History and Culture". Besides providing links to additional information about the library's African-American collection of books, periodicals, prints, photographs, music, film, and recorded sound, this well-illustrated Web site provides a painfully honest yet celebratory chronology of blacks in North America. The exhibit covers the four periods characterized by the colonization of Africa by free blacks, Abolition, the northward migrations, and the Works Progress Administration.
What began at UCLA as an effort to join studies on Hispanic issues with research on linguistic minorities and education has evolved into a general Hispanic-focused Internet site that serves all segments of the community. CLNet (for "Chicano/Latino" Net) has a "virtual museum" that offers exhibits on art, murals, music, and other Mexican-American artifacts; a community center that collects information about education, housing, and legal services; an employment center posting job opportunities; a calendar of conferences and exhibitions; a student center with information about nationwide student organizations and activities; and a library with links to the leading Hispanic research collections and archives.
Many of the links from this Web site are bilingual or in Spanish only; indeed many originate in Latin America, including several Mexican newspapers. Hispanic Magazine, primarily a print publication, offers selected articles on-line every month. A recent issue, for example, contained articles about the National Hispanic Scholarship Fund and Self Help, a group that promotes the arts in East Los Angeles.
Although most of the sites mentioned here are implicitly educational, some have an explicitly pedagogical agenda. One of the most impressive of those is NetNoir, with a broad array of African-American cultural content. The NetNoir Web site is still "under construction," but a fully developed version is available on America Online (AOL). One section of the AOL site is a collection of informal courses taught by black-studies college professors from around the country. Examples of courses include an introductory history course called "Motherland: Africa's Past," a sociology course on "The African-American Male: An Endangered Species?" and "African-American Poetry: An Introduction." Each professor posts lectures on AOL and assigns weekly readings. Students respond through electronic mail and interactive discussions in AOL "chat rooms." Open to anyone, these free, four-to-six-week courses not only educate students about black history and culture, but they provide a backdrop to help participants relate their immediate environment to a larger sociological context.
NetNoir also provides information and resources in the areas of music, sports, business, lifestyles, film, health, women's issues, politics, games, arts, literature, and spirituality. Young children can download examples of African-themed line art, for example, and print it out to create their own coloring books. Teenagers can download a full-color poster and sound clip of their favorite singer. NetNoir vice-president Malcolm CasSelle is continually looking for ways to make the medium more accessible to a larger segment of the population. He says, "I believe that by aggregating global Afrocentric content, NetNoir Online can become a place for many, many folks to launch into the world of interactive services. We not only want to help people from around the planet enjoy and learn about Afrocentric culture, I also believe the medium is well-suited for the goal of bringing people together."
A Web site with quite a different agenda is that of the political movement called the Nation of Hawai'i, which presents the island's political and cultural history and promotes its sovereignty and independence from the United States. Background material sets the stage by explaining the overthrow of the government of Queen Lili'uokalani by the United States 100 years ago; it traces subsequent events culminating in what the site's creators charge was the illegal enforcement of statehood in 1959. Today, the Nation of Hawai'i has a new head of state, a new constitution, and new energy feeding the effort to reclaim the land for native Hawaiians. Although casual visitors to the Web site may come looking for alluring pictures of white sand beaches, they invariably leave with an appreciation of the determination of this group of Hawaiians to regain their sovereignty.
According to Nation of Hawai'i director of communication Scott Crawford, who asks Web visitors to record comments in the site's guest book, the response to the independence movement has been overwhelmingly positive. He notes that the group has only just begun to receive attention in the national news media. "This Web site," Crawford says, "has been our exclusive avenue to communicate to the world what's happening here. We've been steadily educating people for almost a year now and forming a network out of that education."
School kids from the mainland as well as from the islands use the site for resource material for writing reports, but Crawford is most proud of helping Hawaiian students learn about their own roots. "When the kids learn about how strong their people were and that their country was recognized around the world, and when they learn of the continuing struggle for sovereignty and rights to the land, it is very empowering. It boosts their self-esteem and helps them feel the uniqueness of their culture and history." Although Crawford is quick to point out that Hawaiians are not Native Americans, his group is forging alliances with indigenous groups on the U.S. mainland, Latin America, and New Zealand. In this way, groups nurturing traditional cultures and their connections to the land are finding bonds with one another through today's highest technology.
In contrast to earlier times, where news traveled slowly and information was controlled by the most powerful in a society, ethnic-based groups at the grass roots are finding the Internet a source of power through information. The electronic medium is building bridges once made impossible by racial and cultural differences and by lack of access to information. No longer does the acquisition of knowledge depend on close proximity to books and libraries. Indeed, books may slip to second place as the preferred information resource.
Touch the Net, then, and you'll feel the pulse of a multicultural society--relevant and alive. High schooler Courtney Oldham says she turns to books for history, "but when you want to learn about current topics like affirmative action and multiculturalism today, history books can't help you. These issues are in the present, and the Internet is probably about as current as you can get."
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