A connected series of short stories about race and racism set in Milwaukee is the 2015 UW-Milwaukee Common Read Experience selection. All incoming first-year students will read and discuss the book, “Meet Me Halfway: Milwaukee Stories,” with university faculty and staff during their first week on campus this fall.
The just-released collection of stories focuses on diverse characters living in Milwaukee. “Meet Me Halfway: Milwaukee Stories,” is the fourth annual UWM Common Read Experience selection. Morales’ debut collection was chosen by a committee of students, faculty and staff drawn to its unique focus on Milwaukee’s history and culture, including the city’s rich and complicated history of race relations.
“Those very cultural connections serve as the main arteries of ‘Meet Me Halfway,’” says Robert Smith, Common Read Experience co-chair and UWM associate vice chancellor for global inclusion & engagement. “This book will provide opportunities for engaging, culturally relevant discussions about people from diverse backgrounds living in our backyard.”
“I am thrilled by the selection, and am really looking forward to engaging with the UWM community about the book and the issues it raises,” says author Jennifer Morales, who spent 20 years in Milwaukee, where she raised children and served on the Milwaukee Board of School Directors—the first Latino/a elected to it.
Morales grew up in a multiracial household and had a diverse group of friends and neighbors in Chicago. She was surprised at the deep segregation she encountered when she moved to Milwaukee 30 years ago. “One of the characters in the book jokes that if you know someone’s address [in Milwaukee], you know what color they are.”
The book looks at Milwaukee through the stories of a diverse group of characters – white schoolteachers and senior citizens, Latino landlords, black and Puerto Rican teens, political activists and Vietnam vets.
Morales drew on her own experiences to write “Meet Me Halfway.”
“I observed people on buses, in grocery stores and in professional settings,” she says. “There are so many voices in Milwaukee.”
The Common Read is designed to promote the transition of first-year students into the university by sparking conversation about issues, connecting them with faculty members from multiple disciplines and building community among new students.
Morales will attend campus events in support of the Common Read Experience, and says she is interested in students’ reactions to the book, both those who grew up in Milwaukee and those who come from outside the area. Thousands of UWM students are involved in service learning, internships and summer jobs, and it’s important to have them learn about the city and its people early in their college careers, she adds.
“The selection committee agreed that ‘Meet Me Halfway’ can expand students’ sense of the world Milwaukee contains, introducing our readers to neighborhoods they’d otherwise overlook, lives they may not have always thought about and histories previously unknown to them,” adds Smith.
