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Title details for It's a Privilege Just to Be Here by Emma Sasaki - Available

It's a Privilege Just to Be Here

A Novel

by Emma Sasaki
ebook
1 of 1 copy available
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1 of 1 copy available
This debut novel pulls at the threads in the (cashmere) sweater of academia in a witty take-down of racial inequality at prep schools, perfect for fans of Such a Fun Age and Little Fires Everywhere.
Wesley Friends School is Washington, DC’s most prestigious prep school, so of course Aki Hiyashi-Brown is proud to teach at it and send her daughter Meg there. Why wouldn't she be proud? Parents kill to have their kid enrolled at Wesley. Not only is Wesley the premier academic destination for the children of the capital elite, but it’s all about "Diversity, Achievement, Collegiality," as all of their very glossy brochures will tell you. Aki should know. As one of the few teachers of color on staff, her face is plastered on every piece of marketing material the school puts out. 
But when someone graffities "Make Wesley White Again" on campus, it exposes dangerous fault lines in the school community, ones Aki may have spent a lifetime learning to ignore. But her headstrong daughter Meg, and Meg's similarly impassioned classmates, aren’t willing to let slide. 
Before Aki can sort out her own feelings about the hate crime, the school's administration jumps into crisis management mode and assigns Aki as head of the Racial Equity Task Force—a cobbled-together initiative that has a big name and little actual power. Between hasty changes to the curriculum and an anonymous instagram account documenting a history of racism on campus, Aki finds herself caught in the crossfire.
Written with the keen eye of a prep school insider, It’s a Privilege Just to Be Here is a piercing takedown of the American institution of prep schools and a searing perspective on the growing tensions between generations with different ideas of how to fight for what you believe in.

  • Creators

  • Publisher

  • Release date

    June 4, 2024

  • Formats

    • Kindle Book

    • OverDrive Read

      • ISBN: 9781639107841

    • EPUB ebook

      • ISBN: 9781639107841
      • File size: 2033 KB

  • Languages

    • English

  • Reviews

    • Publisher's Weekly

      April 29, 2024
      A Japanese American private school teacher gets caught in a firestorm of racial politics in Sasaki’s timely if muddled debut. Aki Hayashi-Brown teaches history at the prestigious Wesley Friends School in Washington, D.C., where her daughter, Meg, is a junior. When someone graffitis “Make Wesley White Again” on the arts building, Aki is dragooned into serving as interim director of a new DEI task force. Meg insists her mom find a way to punish suspected culprit Aaron Wakeman, son of the school’s biggest donor, but Aki feels torn between her fierce desire for justice and the instinct her parents instilled in her to cope with racism by “ignoring, denying, or deflecting.” Meg, on the other hand, is outspoken in her accusations against Aaron, and after she’s suspended for slapping him, the pressures on Aki mount. Some of the satire feels a bit convoluted—Aki is understandably conflicted, but it’s sometimes hard to tell whether Sasaki means to skewer the cloistered world of private schools or the cultural forces that make her characters believe such institutions are a necessary evil. Despite its occasional frustrations, this leaves readers with much to chew on. Agent: Melissa Danaczko, Stuart Krichevsky Literary.

Formats

  • Kindle Book
  • OverDrive Read
  • EPUB ebook

subjects

Languages

  • English

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