The Mitali Test

A couple weeks ago, Mitali Perkins suggested applying a version of the Bechdel Test to books, as a way of evaluating their racial and cultural diversity.

In the comments, I threw out the term "Mitali Test," which other commenters seemed to like. (I also demonstrated my inability to spell "knew," but that's another story.)

The Mitali Test asks three questions about a book:

1. Are there two or more people of color with names?
2. Do they have a significant conversation with each other?
3. Do they talk about something other than race?

I decided to apply the Mitali Test to the middle-grade and YA books in my LibraryThing collection. Here's what passed*:

• 47 and Sunrise Over Fallujah, Walter Dean Myers
• The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, Sherman Alexie
• The Amethyst Road, Louise Spengler (This could go either way, but I say the fictionalized Roma count)
• Any Small Goodness, Tony Johnston
• Ask Me No Questions, Marina Budhos
• Before We Were Free and How Tía Lola Came to Stay, Julia Alvarez
• Bhangra Babes, Bindi Babes, and Bollywood Babes, Narinder Dhami
• Bucking the Sarge, Bud Not Buddy, and The Watsons Go to Birmingham - 1963, Christopher Paul Curtis
• Candle in the Wind, Maureen Wartski
• A Cap for Mary Ellis, Hope Newell
• Chains and Forge, Laurie Halse Anderson
• Climbing the Stairs, Padma Venkatraman
• Cubanita, Gaby Triana
• Dark Dude, Oscar Hijuelos
• Does My Head Look Big in This? and Ten Things I Hate About Me, Randa Abdel-Fattah
• Echoes of the White Giraffe and Year of Impossible Goodbyes, Sook Nyul Choi
• Esperanza Rising, Pam Muñoz Ryan
• Estrella's Quinceañera, Malín Alegría
• Front Porch Stories at the One-Room School and Celeste's Harlem Renaissance, Eleanora Tate
• Gully's Travels, Tor Seidler
• Habibi, Naomi Shihab Nye
• Honey Blonde Chica, Michele Serros
• If Only You Knew, Denene Millner and Mitzi Miller
• Jason & Kyra, Dana Davidson
• The Kayla Chronicles, Sherri Winston
• Keeping Corner and Koyal Dark, Mango Sweet, Kashmira Sheth
• Kendra, Coe Booth
• Kiffe Kiffe Tomorrow, Faiza Guene
• Kim/Kimi, Hadley Irwin
• El Lector, William Durbin
• Marcelo in the Real World, Francisco X. Stork
• My Most Excellent Year, Steve Kluger
• My Sister Sif, Ruth Park
• Nothing But the Truth (And a Few White Lies), Justina Chen Headley
• Red Palms, Cara Haycack
• The Return, Sonia Levitin
• Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry, Let the Circle Be Unbroken, and The Road to Memphis, Mildred D. Taylor
• Seedfolks, Paul Fleischman (I think)
• Shadow Spinner, Susan Fletcher
• She's So Money, Cherry Cheva
• Skunk Girl, Sheba Karim
• Sweet, Hereafter, Angela Johnson
• Tangled Threads, Pegi Deitz Shea
• Trouble Don't Last, and All of the Above, Shelley Pearsall
• The War Between the Classes, Gloria Miklowitz
• White Hare's Horses, Penina Keen Spinka
• Who's Your Daddy?, Lynda Sandoval
• Why Does the Coquí Sing?, Barbara Garland Polikoff
• A Wish After Midnight, Zetta Elliott
• Wolf by the Ears, Ann Rinaldi (This was, I believe her first book, and loads better than her more recent stuff.)

Is this a comprehensive list? Hardly. But it's a start.

*I was relying on memory when I compiled this list, and it's been a while since I read a few of these. Feel free to correct me on any that don't meet all three criteria.

Chapter 12: Jane returns

Bit of a hiatus there - sorry about that! Let's check in with our heroine.

"The promise of a smooth career" at Thornfield, Jane decides, "was not belied on a longer acquaintance with the place and its inmates." Which is all well and good, but she wants a little more.

"I climbed the three staircases, raised the trap-door of the attic, and having reached the leads, looked out afar over sequestered field and hill, and along dim sky-line—that then I longed for a power of vision which might overpass that limit; which might reach the busy world, towns, regions full of life I had heard of but never seen—that then I desired more of practical experience than I possessed; more of intercourse with my kind, of acquaintance with variety of character, than was here within my reach. I valued what was good in Mrs. Fairfax, and what was good in Adèle; but I believed in the existence of other and more vivid kinds of goodness, and what I believed in I wished to behold."

Goodness? Well, I suppose it depends on your point of view.

When a stranger appears, Jane's first reaction is to think of North Country ghost stories:

"In those days I was young, and all sorts of fancies bright and dark tenanted my mind: the memories of nursery stories were there amongst other rubbish; and when they recurred, maturing youth added to them a vigour and vividness beyond what childhood could give. As this horse approached, and as I watched for it to appear through the dusk, I remembered certain of Bessie's tales, wherein figured a North-of-England spirit called a 'Gytrash,' which, in the form of horse, mule, or large dog, haunted solitary ways, and sometimes came upon belated travellers, as this horse was now coming upon me."

But even ghost stories, for Jane, have a certain logic:

"The horse followed,—a tall steed, and on its back a rider. The man, the human being, broke the spell at once. Nothing ever rode the Gytrash: it was always alone; and goblins, to my notions, though they might tenant the dumb carcasses of beasts, could scarce covet shelter in the commonplace human form. No Gytrash was this,—only a traveller taking the short cut to Millcote."

Anyone want to venture a guess as to who the traveler might be?

(Aside: There's another great instance of sly Bronte humor here, as Charlotte take a little dig at Jane's innocence: "I think he was swearing, but am not certain; however, he was pronouncing some formula which prevented him from replying to me directly.")

As for that innocence - it doesn't necessarily imply humility:

"His figure was enveloped in a riding cloak, fur collared and steel clasped; its details were not apparent, but I traced the general points of middle height and considerable breadth of chest. He had a dark face, with stern features and a heavy brow; his eyes and gathered eyebrows looked ireful and thwarted just now; he was past youth, but had not reached middle-age; perhaps he might be thirty-five. I felt no fear of him, and but little shyness."

When Jane returns to the house, the maid Leah indirectly identifies the man as Mr. Rochester, the long-absent master of Thornfield. But we have to wait for another chapter before we can begin making a sketch of his character.