Huntington Beach Reads

By Sami Yerunkar, Staff writer

On Thursday, March 5, a select number of sophomores from FVHS chaperoned by English teacher Ms. Ziegler gathered at the Huntington Beach High School gymnasium to attend the annual program “HB Reads One” hosted by the Huntington Beach Human Relations Task Force.

This year, the program\’s guest speaker was the author of The Kids from Nowhere, George Guthridge. His book is his unique experience teaching indigenous children on St. Laurence Island, a sparsely populated island off the west coast of Alaska.

Professor Guthridge talked to the attendees about the various social problems and challenges faced by the natives of Alaska, such as their subsistence lifestyle and lack of basic amenities because of their remote location. He also explained that the rest of the world, especially developing countries, faces the same problems caused by poverty and poor infrastructure. Guthridge claimed the key to solving both problems is education.

Sophomore Norman Chung says, “I think the presentation’s theme of ‘the poor get one door\’ is meaningful and true because in an area that doesn\’t offer much opportunity, education is the only way to rise above your current status.”

Guthridge was accompanied by Merle, a former student who led his local high school team to Saint Lawrence Island to win Future Problem Solving International. These students overcame language barriers and had to change their way of thinking to adapt to the western education system.

The indigenous was of thinking could be best described as situational and deliberate, as it analyzes the situation as a whole thoroughly before carefully coming with ways to circumvent the problem. Western thinking can be represented by the phrase “try, try again.” But in the dangerous Alaskan tundra, one has to be very careful which promotes the careful indigenous way of thinking.

The program ended with students from the Art Institute of California offering a variation of traditional Yupik ice cream. There was also a sample exhibition of Yupik art, ranging from ivory sculptures to various wood carvings and tools, as well as animal materials used by natives as decorations.

Sophomore Christopher Allen says, “It was a fantastic educational experience. However, it lacked enough information and commentary on the actual book, as 75% of the lecture was jargon about diversity and tolerance, absorbed from training sessions and regurgitated onto us by the Human Relations.”