Reading
Get Ready To Read!

NEA celebrates Read Across America March 3 this year, and it's not too late to send your pledge and let us know what you're doing to celebrate reading. If you're wondering what you can do to get involved, take a look at what's already happening around the country.

Connect with a community partner.
NEA's Read Across America has 40 partner organizations, including the National Council of La Raza, Reading is Fundamental, the National Football Players Association, and the Boys and Girls Club of America, whose local affiliates are eager to get involved. Create a reading project that will bring communities together around books.

Get wild about Reading.
High school students in Connecticut created their own Seussapalooza with local elementary students.

Set up book collections for homeless shelters, children's hospitals, or homes for abused and battered children.
Let them know you care by sharing books. NEA's Read Across America is teaming up with Heart of America Foundation to collect books for children in need.

You'll find lots more on how to participate in NEA's Read Across America on our website. Go to www.nea.org/readacross.

'Reading exercised the muscles of my imagination.'

Read Across America co-chair Esai Morales describes himself as an "actorvist," who combines art and activism to build bridges of understanding. Looking at his strong union and education background, it's easy to see why. Morales talked with Anita Merina of NEA's Read Across America campaign about his labor background and his zeal for arts education and literacy.

What are your union roots?
My mother was an organizer for the International Ladies Garment Union, a regular Norma Rae. Her union work was one of the inspirations for my own activism. She taught me that when you go someplace, you leave it better than you found it.

What about your own union roles?
I'm a long-time member of the Screen Actors Guild (SAG). Most people associate SAG with famous names, but we also represent actors who don't make big money; they rely on us to protect their rights and articulate their needs.

I'm on the board of directors for SAG and the SAG Foundation, the charitable arm of our organization. The SAG Foundation has a terrific literacy program called BookPALS (Performing Artists for Literacy in Schools) that sends actors to read in schools that don't have many resources. The children love it, and so do the actors.

Tell us about the Hispanic Foundation for the Arts.
The Foundation's mission is to improve the opportunity and image of Hispanics in front of as well as behind the camera. As founders, Jimmy Smits, Sonia Braga, and I felt we needed to address the serious lack of representation of Hispanics in the media today. In a world where the media is the message, we are left out too often. Through the foundation, we create opportunities with scholarships and other programs. And we take a public look at how Hispanics are portrayed.

By putting more Latinos on television, you increase the chance of portraying the diversity of our people. By putting more Latinos on screen that are not just the old cliché, we're helping the evolution of our media image.

This is your second year with NEA's Read Across America. Why get involved?
As a child, reading was a way for me to exercise the muscles of my imagination. There was no limit to what worlds reading could bring to me. Getting involved with NEA's effort to do the same for millions of children was easy.

Why is reading important?
Because reading takes words and images and symbols and formulates them into ideas and thoughts in your own head. It exercises the reader's mind, and it's a cheap form of travel!

Were you read to as a child?
My mother, as well as different aunts and uncles, read to me. I enjoyed Great Earth by Pearl S. Buck, Dr. Seuss, the Curious George books, Where the Wild Things Are, and so many others I can't recall. Later on, I graduated to books like Isabel Allende's The House of the Spirits and Gabriel Garc?a Márquez's 100 Years of Solitude.

On Diversity and Dr. Seuss

Actress Ming-Na, known for her portrayal of Dr. Jing-Mei (Deb) Chen on NBC's ER, will co-chair this year's Read Across America campaign. The actress, who moved from China to New York when she was four years old, first attracted attention with her performance in The Joy Luck Club. Ming-Na spoke with NEA Today's Kristen Loschert about the role reading plays in her career.

Why did you want to co-chair NEA's Read Across America?
Well, I am a new mom, first of all, and I love reading to my daughter. I've always been an advocate of reading to children, and it's a great program that encourages kids to read.

Do publishers offer enough diversity in the images portrayed in children's books?
I think more so now than when I was a kid, that's for sure. There's definitely a greater variety to choose from.

Do you have any favorite authors or books?
When I was a kid, I enjoyed Dr. Seuss, which I've passed on to my daughter. I read her The Cat in the Hat all the time. For myself, it runs the gamut from the Harry Potter books to science fiction.

How has your love of reading helped you as an actor?
Acting is all about words. No matter how wonderful an actor might be, if it weren't for the written words there's really not much we can do. I've been trained as a theater actress to respect the written word.

Tell me a little bit about the goals of your music company, Innovazian.
Being Chinese-American, I think it's important to have diversity in all areas. My husband and I both felt that there was absolutely no diversity as far as having Asians represented in the music business. So that was our actual motivation--to produce this Asian-American boy band called AT LAST. Once again, it's about communicating through words, and this is adding music to words, which is probably one of the most powerful forms of communication because it can touch you on so many levels.

What project in your career are you most proud of?
The Joy Luck Club, without a doubt. When I read that book in college, it was the first time I felt like I was reading a book that related to who I was and the kind of upbringing I had as an Asian-American. I'm more recognized for that project than anything else, and that means the movie really connected with the audience.

Do television and film producers do enough to portray positive images of Asian-Americans?
I think they try. My show, ER, is definitely one of the more diverse ones. It's slow in coming, but it is happening. When you start to see it in commericals, then you'll start seeing it in the television shows and movies.

Is there any final message about reading you'd like to share?
I really encourage parents and teachers not to make reading a chore. If you make reading fun and introduce children to it, it opens up such an incredible world for them.

When I was right out of college, I volunteered with a literacy program for adults. There were so many adults who tried to hide the fact that they couldn't read. Then they would come to this volunteer program and work one-on-one with a tutor. I could see their faces light up when they finally were able to read their first sentence. I was always so proud of being part of that program.

That's why I wanted to be involved with Read Across. I think reading is an incredible experience. It's a skill that every human being deserves to have.

Resources

Looking for a few good resources to make your reading efforts a success? NEA's Read Across America website (www.nea.org/readacross) is full of them. You'll find the entire Read Across America Resource Kit on the site, including a year-round literacy calendar to keep you going. Here are just a few of the gems on the site:

The Youth Leaders for Literacy Book List, a collection of favorite books by teens who took part in NEA's joint project with Youth Service America. You'll find classics like L.M. Montgomery's Anne of Green Gables and new books like Louis Sachar's Holes.

Si usted necesita materiales en español, los puede encontrar en el sitio de internet, junto con una lista excelente de libros escritos en español.

Need materials for parents? The RAA website offers a parent's guide to early literacy and recommended books for early readers. RAA partner PBS' Reading Rockets is only a click away from the RAA site and offers a multitude of reading tips, author interviews, and much more. Go to www.readingrockets.org.