For as long as I can remember, Literature has been an important part of my life. I remember times when my mother would read to me before bed. Usually, the stories would consist of popular fairy tales about a princess in a faraway place or about charming and happy animal creatures living in a magical realm and doing fantastic and wonderful things.

As I grew older I began seeing Literature as a means of escape from my everyday life. When my Mom would pick me up from school, my heart would swell with anticipation as we neared the public library. Literature was the key to entering a new world but I saw the library as the magical portal in which imagination was housed.

I read books from a multitude of authors in a plethora of genres. By the time I reached my teens, there was no genre that I hadn’t explored. As a reader, I found myself going on wonderful adventures and experiencing moments that felt as real to me as the book I was grasping in my hands, but there was one thing that always bothered me and that was the blatant lack of representation.

While choosing the newest story to read, it was evident that there wasn't a shortage in strong and courageous female protagonists, but I found those characters hard to relate to. Mainly because the author would frequently describe the heroine as having long blonde or auburn colored hair with blue or maybe even green eyes. Sometimes the author might even give their characters’ dark features such as chestnut colored hair or dark brown eyes. One thing is for certain and that is the character is most often depicted as white.

I learned early on that if I wanted to read a story about someone that looked anything like me, I’d have to travel to the dreaded “African American” section of the library (which was often located in the very back of the Fiction section) to get my fix. This was my first dose of literary reality.

One can say that color shouldn’t matter and that I should be able to relate to any character regardless of their race... I mean the characters are fictional anyway. They don’t truly exist. Although this statement may be true to an extent, it doesn’t acknowledge the ever-present problem that exists in the literary world. If race doesn’t matter, then why is there a shortage of minority lead characters present in modern Literature? If American society is evolving into a diverse country that welcomes individuals from all walks of life, then why aren’t our books reflecting that cultural shift?

An article written for Book Trust talks about the alarming diversity gap in the Western Literature. The author asked three British writers to give insight on what literary diversity means to them and share ideas on how the problem can be ratified. British author Catherine Johnson stated, “In an ideal world diversity would mean the availability of stories that reflect a wide range of British backgrounds and experiences including class and race, written by a wide range of people.”

Malorie Blackman, another interviewed British author expressed how the issue starts at the publishing level. She says that publishing houses need to take steps in hiring multicultural writers who will create diverse characters that children can relate to. “It's not just about multicultural books, but writers from culturally diverse backgrounds as well. We need children's books that reflect more than just one worldview.”

Sunili Govinnage, a human rights lawyer and freelance writer from Australia, recognized this problem and decided to conduct a personal experiment. She decided to only read books written by authors of color. In the past, she has read amazing stories written by famous white authors. She admittedly said that many of the classic authors were on the list of books that she regularly consumed, but once she made the conscious decision to venture outside of her usual "norm" she states that she had an experience that "moved her so deeply" that her perspective was forever changed.

She used the typical resources to try and find books from authors of color but the mission proved to be a great challenge. In her research, she found that white authors were dominant in literary reviews, bestseller lists, and online book recommendations. After a vigorous online search, she found authors from multicultural backgrounds who had amazing stories to tell. Govinnage read books from ethnic writers like Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie and Ambelin Kwaymullina who are rightfully well-known in their countries of birth but fail to be adequately recognized in the west.

An article from the online publication Entertainment, suggests that publishing houses recognize that there's a problem but the demand in sales just isn't there. A Mexican American author by the name of Gary Soto wrote countless children's books featuring Latinx characters living out their life experiences and doing amazing things but the lack of sales forced him to end his career as a children's book writer.

According to CCBC (Cooperative Children's Book Center), many of the books featuring people of color as a lead or supporting character are written by authors of a different ethnic identity. In 2016, the statistics show that out of the 3,400 books received by U.S. publishers, only 92 were by Black authors and 278 were about Black characters. The records also show that 22 of the books were by American Indians but 55 were written about them. Asian Pacifics had a total of 212 books written by them with 237 written about them and Latinos had 101 books written by them with 166 written about them.

I believe that the responsibility lies within the publishing companies as well as the writers and their audience. If more readers become aware of this problem, then they could start demanding a change. It is important for non-white individuals to be excited about Literature, to see themselves in influential and powerful characters. At a very young age, kids look to children's books to teach them about the world and their place in it. Don't you think that a little black girl should be able to read a book and envision herself going on wacky and crazy adventures after falling down a rabbit hole or a young Indian boy gaining a sense of bravery by fighting angry pirates on a treasure island?