The Biden administration has allocated hundreds of thousands of taxpayer dollars to investigate the reading preferences of minority children, particularly their interest in Japanese comic books, as part of an initiative to promote diversity, equity, and inclusion in libraries across the country.
The Institute of Museum and Library Services, a federal agency operating under the National Foundation on the Arts and the Humanities, recently granted $313,318 to Queens College in New York to undertake a three-year study on manga, a style of comic book originating from Japan.
The objective of this study is to comprehend the reasons why black, indigenous, and people of color children are drawn to manga as a form of literature. The grant also aims to address the “knowledge gap” among librarians who might not be familiar with manga and to identify popular manga titles among teenagers.