OCT 3, 2024 | ARTS & ENTERTAINMENT | By Sydney McGarr
On a blistering 96-degree afternoon, Jennifer Martinez ‘27, sat in the grass under the shade of a Tava Quad pine tree. Light chatter lingered behind her as one student read an excerpt from J.D. Salinger’s “The Catcher in the Rye” into a microphone on a small stage.
In her hand, she held an excerpt from “The Things They Carried” by Tim O’Brien. The book is banned in multiple school districts across the country, most notably in Texas — Martinez’s home state, as well as Mississippi. She read it in front of a crowd of students and faculty gathered for Colorado College’s Banned Books Event “Freed Between the Lines,” on Sept. 26.
“I plan on getting my master’s in Library Science,” Martinez said. “I’ve been really interested in books for a long time. Banned Books Week is really important to me.”
When Martinez approached the microphone to read aloud, she also presented a poem she chose, “My Father Was a Toltec” by Ana Castillo, which she read in Spanish.
During the banned books event, students and faculty took turns sharing excerpts from a myriad of texts banned or challenged in different school districts throughout the country. The books ranged from classics, such as “The Picture of Dorian Gray” by Oscar Wilde to more contemporary pieces, like “The Perks of Being a Wallflower” by Stephen Chbosky.
The event was sponsored by the English Department and Tutt Library in solidarity with the American Library Association’s Banned Books Week. CC Mobile Arts, an organization that offers pop-up visual and performing arts programs to the public, provided the stage and microphone set-up.
The goal of the week was to raise awareness about banned and challenged books throughout the United States, many of which are censored because of their mentions of LGTBQIA+ topics or because they engage with content regarding race, sexuality and gender. Seven of the 10 books on the ALA’s list of the Top Most Challenged Books of 2023 are challenged because of their LGBTQIA+ content.
“[The books] are often banned for sexual content which includes being queer and transitioning. So a lot of the books are [young adult] books. A lot of the books are children’s books,” says English Professor Aline Lo, a key organizer of the event.
Book banning and censoring, particularly in school districts, is not a new issue but it is a growing one. According to the ALA website, the number of book titles targeted for censorship saw a 65% surge between 2022 and 2023.
In 2023, there were 12 attempts to restrict access to isolated books in Colorado. 142 individual titles were challenged. Earlier this year, the Colorado Senate Education Committee shot down Senate Bill 49, a bill designed to make it harder to remove content from public and school libraries.
A surge in resistance to the bans has accompanied the increase in censorship. CC’s banned books event is just one example of the countless charges across the country to bring awareness to the issue.
Several libraries have taken initiative by hosting educational events and starting banned book clubs. Concerned community members are encouraged to report instances of possible book censorship to the ALA.
For Colorado College students, two consecutive hours of reading banned books out loud sent a powerful message: we share support for the freedom to read.