Focus on Family & Culture
Jul 3 2008
Written by Gremlyn Bradley Waddell
Teaching Diversity
A remark by her adopted daughter’s preschool friend changed the direction of Peggy Gillespie’s life.
Her multi-racial youngster had taken a favorite African-American doll to school and a classmate – her daughter’s good friend and also the daughter of Gillespie’s then, and still, close friend – mentioned that the doll had “ugly brown skin.”
“My daughter would never bring the doll back to school,” says Gillespie, who says she realized that the racially insensitive sentiment came not from that classmate and her family but, rather, the culture as a whole.
And so the Amherst, Mass., freelance writer decided she’d try to change the culture a bit and teach kids about diversity. She envisioned an exhibit for children in which photos of multiracial families would be shown, accompanied by big blocks of text in which the subjects could share their stories of family life. Gillespie enlisted the help and talent of Gigi Kaeser, her daughter’s preschool teacher who witnessed the classroom comment that fateful day in the late 1980s and who just happened to be a freelance photographer.
The two won a small grant, created their first exhibit entitled Of Many Colors: Portraits of Multiracial Families and co-founded Family Diversity Projects around 1990. That exhibit was such a success that it moved to other venues besides elementary schools, and Gillespie created a new text for an older audience.
A remark by her adopted daughter’s preschool friend changed the direction of Peggy Gillespie’s life.
Her multi-racial youngster had taken a favorite African-American doll to school and a classmate – her daughter’s good friend and also the daughter of Gillespie’s then, and still, close friend – mentioned that the doll had “ugly brown skin.”
“My daughter would never bring the doll back to school,” says Gillespie, who says she realized that the racially insensitive sentiment came not from that classmate and her family but, rather, the culture as a whole.
And so the Amherst, Mass., freelance writer decided she’d try to change the culture a bit and teach kids about diversity. She envisioned an exhibit for children in which photos of multiracial families would be shown, accompanied by big blocks of text in which the subjects could share their stories of family life. Gillespie enlisted the help and talent of Gigi Kaeser, her daughter’s preschool teacher who witnessed the classroom comment that fateful day in the late 1980s and who just happened to be a freelance photographer.
The two won a small grant, created their first exhibit entitled Of Many Colors: Portraits of Multiracial Families and co-founded Family Diversity Projects around 1990. That exhibit was such a success that it moved to other venues besides elementary schools, and Gillespie created a new text for an older audience.
Today, the non-profit organization offers several traveling photo-and-text, museum-quality exhibits that celebrate diversity: Of Many Colors; In Our Family: Portraits of All Kinds of Families; Love Makes a Family: Portraits of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender People and Their Families; Nothing to Hide: Mental Illness in the Family; Pioneering Voices: Portraits of Transgender People (made by a student intern): and The Road to Freedom: Portraits of People with Disabilities.
“It’s lifesaving, we’ve heard,” Gillespie says of the work she and Kaeser have created.
Gillespie says the exhibits are sent all over the world, to big cities and small hamlets, and rented (on a sliding-scale fee) by elementary schools, colleges, museums, houses of worship, mental health centers, small businesses and huge corporations. The exhibits are easy to set up, she adds, and are delivered in 125-pound plastic shipping boxes. Coffee-table quality books of most of the exhibits have also been published, and there’s also a curriculum guide associated with the In Our Family exhibit that anyone can download for free (see the “Exhibitor Area” on the web site).
“We’re definitely about sharing information,” says Gillespie, who isn’t above answering the phone after hours. “We don’t feel like we ‘own’ this idea.”
Grants from individual donors, as well as groups like The Arcus Foundation, Target and the Daimler-Chrysler Corporation Fund, keep the two-woman (plus an occasional bookkeeper or student intern) operation running. But Family Diversity Projects has not been without its share of controversy. When they recommended their Love Makes a Family exhibit to Amherst schools, Gillespie and touched many a nerve of those who felt the show advocated a homosexual lifestyle. Ultimately, a federal court case determined the exhibit could be shown on the grounds of free speech, Gillespie says.
And all the troubles are worth it, she notes, when she hears that someone felt supported by what he or she saw at one of the exhibits – or how someone with preconceived notions about what a family should look like came to realize that families come in all genders and colors. And there are sure to be more exhibits in the future.
“We love our projects, so we keep making new ones,” Gillespie says.
What was the most shocking or pleasantly surprising comment made about diversity at your school? Join the Discussion below to share.
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1 Comments
Jun 16 2008
Written by Elizabeth
A girl in my daughter’s school told my daughter that she didn’t want to play with her because of her skin color. Fortunately her teacher handled it beautifully. I wrote about it in my bog before I found BLUR http://www.myonelovelife.com
Now my daughter questions interactions with others wondering if they don’t want to play with her because of her skin color. She’s only 5 years old! As a white mom I think the issues are different. I haven’t had her experience. It makes me really angry but I also feel a little helpless. I want to support her and not taint her experience with my own Pollyanna/white privilege perspective.