Negotiating Identities through Canadian Multicultural and Indigenous Picturebooks: A Collective Autobiographical Narrative Inquiry

Abstract

Canadian multicultural and Indigenous picturebooks greatly influence both children’s and educators’ being and becoming. Identity is closely related to our engagement with literacy practices, including book reading. In this paper, two researchers who immigrated from Mainland China engage in autobiographical narrative inquiry, a methodology that asks the researchers to self-face, and to “world”-travel to our earlier landscapes, times, places, experiences, and relationships. In personal, educational, and academic settings, we tell and retell our storied experiences of critically reading four multicultural and Indigenous Canadian picturebooks, to fight the hegemony of the Canadian dominant culture. Our article sheds light on the importance of negotiating one’s identity in multicultural and Indigenous picturebooks, as little work presents minority educators’ and adult newcomers’ voices of reading diverse Canadian picturebooks. By making visible our critical reading experiences, this inquiry opens space to maximize the outcomes of utilizing children’s literature in teaching and learning.