Kids in Cultures educates (while entertaining) children on key concepts of diversity, including culture, ethnicity, and multicultural societies. Kids learn about these concepts through engaging stories of children in vari­ous historical periods and cultural settings in Southeastern Wisconsin. The authors are authorities in their fields. Stories include the following.

• In “Mammoth meat,” archaeologist Dr. Alice Kehoe uses evidence from a prehistoric site on Lake Michigan to speculate on the early culture of Paleo­indians that lived 13,500 years ago.

• In “Barbara Smith is German?” cultural anthropologist Dr. Jill Florence Lackey introduces kids to a family that denied its ethnic background in the past because of stereotypes associated with it.

• In “Showing up is important: A Hmong virtue,” Dr. Chia Youyee Vang and Tujntsuj Laujxeeb Yang take young people inside a small community that maintains ethnic bonds in distinctive ways.

• In “Firefly nights: An urban Oneida story,” enrolled Oneida Indian, Kitty Hill, narrates an enchanting story about a family that maintains ties to a common homeland.

• In “Snow falls in Bronzeville: A story of a lost central city neighborhood,” cultural anthropologist Dr. Sienna Jacks gives a mesmerizing account of a close-knit neighborhood where African Americans and Jews cooperated for the good of the residents.

• In “The Braves take the World Series: A Polish and Mexican story,” cultural anthropologist, Dr. Jill Florence Lackey introduces kids to ethnic groups that found their common grounds.

Each story provides sections that challenge kids to identify aspects of culture or ethnicity and learn ways that ethnic groups can work together for the benefit of the larger society.

The following are selected sections from
Kids in Cultures

What is Culture?

What is Ethnicity?

Barbara Smith is German

A Multicultural Society

Snow Falls in Bronzeville

To access full printed copies of this book, go to
mecahmilwaukee.com/Fiction

For interesting class projects tied to this book, consider replicating the ethnic project in Barbara Smith’s classroom. Or send students out to interview elderly residents of neighborhoods that have been lost to urban renewal and/or freeway building, such as Bronzeville. For help in accessing these residents, contact Dr. Jill Lackey at Jflanthropologist@currently.com

Look for our upcoming publication
Kids on the Move: a story of migration and immigration among Wisconsin populations