One Quick Question: What does literature have to do with justice?

Last month, Assistant Professor at WWU’s Fairhaven College of Interdisciplinary Studies Claudia Johnson interviewed Javier Zamora, author and activist, at Bellingham High School as part of the Whatcom READS series.  

Whatcom READS is a countywide program that encourages everyone to read and discuss the same book. This year’s book is Zamora’s “Solito,” a heart-wrenching memoir about crossing the U.S.-Mexico border as an unaccompanied child at the age of nine.  

More than 600 students from Bellingham, Sehome, Options, Squalicum and Blaine high schools attended the event to hear the conversation between Johnson and Zamora. Students and parents from the Bellingham Family Partnership were also in attendance.   

Johnson was a practicing attorney, who represented low-income individuals in civil cases, and a nonprofit legal technology pioneer before coming to Western. She teaches constitutional law, poverty law, reproductive law and more in the Law, Diversity and Justice Center at Fairhaven College.  

Johnson said the Whatcom READS event with Zamora was a great experience, wide-ranging and a lot of fun.  

“The auditorium was packed with teachers and high school students, and the audience was riveted. We had a really nice conversation ranging from caliche (Salvi slang) to the rain in Arizona being like in El Salvador; our connection to our Indigenous Maya Nahuat culture and our Salish brothers and sisters; the plight of Elian Gonzales and the media coverage that exposed the migration of unaccompanied minors from Cuba at that time; the caravans from El Salvador; Bad Bunny at the Super Bowl; and sports, generally, as an outlet for trauma and grief,” Johnson said.

Western Today caught up with Johnson to ask about the relationship between justice and literature.  

WT: What does literature have to do with justice? 

Claudia Johnson: “Literature gives us a chance to look into stories and perspectives that we don't have access to in our daily life. By exposing us to others’ experiences and stories, we become more aware that reality and truth are not one dimensional but multifaceted.  

And with that awareness, we become more open minded and better able to hold and respect multiple perspectives, even competing perspectives, at the same time —  specifically without devaluing or minimizing the ones that are new to us or unfamiliar in our circles.  

Literature is not only a portal to open minds but also a portal to empathy and discernment, and empathy and discernment are key ingredients to the emergence of justice.  

And what is justice? Martin Luther King Jr. said, ‘...justice at its best is power correcting everything that stands against love.’ Or as the quote by Cornel West in the Viking Union says — my favorite quote ever — ‘Justice is what love feels like in public.’  

And what better than to make communities be seen and loved? Literature that reflects their stories and experiences from their own voice. All who work for justice need to read from as many different genres as they can.”  

Allie Spikes covers the WWU Graduate School and Fairhaven College of Interdisciplinary Studies for University Communications. Reach out to her with story ideas at spikesa@wwu.edu.