When I was little, I would read for fun. I’d stay up late with a flashlight under the covers. I was the second-grader who trekked two armloads of library books out to the car because I couldn’t carry all the books I wanted to read. I read the entire Harry Potter series 18+ times between sixth and twelfth grade. I was chatty and social and loved the new friends whose stories I read about in books almost as much as the friends I had in real life.
But then life got busier. It was all I could do to keep with my reading assignments and all of my extracurriculars and friendships, much less read for fun. I loved the challenge of school (still do!), and read the assigned literary and historical works with gusto. The characters woven throughout my high school’s classics-based curriculum sparked fascinating discussions with friends and I remember them just as well as many of the people I met.
During my first semester in college, I took "Identity in World Literature," a course in which I read postcolonial narratives from India, Nigeria and the West Indies. I was fascinated again by the characters and the ways in which I could learn about historical events and contexts through their stories. These narratives, and many of the others I have read at Goshen since, have given me insights I would never otherwise be able to have into the dynamics of many social issues: racism, heterosexism, ableism and many others. I have read stories about traumas I will never experience and as a result have developed compassion for groups of people I have never encountered.
As a history major, I read a lot. Reading primary sources is a lot like reading literature, and it's a great way to meet people and see places that no longer exist. For my immigration history class this May, I read first person narratives written by immigrants throughout all of American history, coming from a multitude of locations. Stretching myself to understand the individual stories made me all the more eager to spot and learn about larger trends.
I honestly believe that reading builds our capacities for empathy and compassion, both for people in the past and for people around us now. One of my goals this summer, as I research inmate re-entry here in Goshen, is to read and learn as much as I can about the experiences of real people on all sides of the criminal justice system. This fall, as I prepare to study abroad in Tanzania, I am looking forward to reading for my African History and African Literature courses. Reading for me is an entirely social experience, a way to meet people and learn about experiences that I would never otherwise understand.
