Sixteen Years in Sixteen Seconds: The Sammy Lee Story by Paula Yoo and illustrated by Dom Lee

You can buy Sixteen Years in Sixteen Seconds: The Sammy Lee Story here.

Citation: 
Yoo, P., and Lee, D. (Illustrator). (2005). Sixteen Years in Sixteen Seconds: The Sammy Lee Story. New York:  Lee & Low Books.

To Use or Not to Use:
This book was a hit with my students and I have heard many of them reference it since our read aloud. I think it struck a chord because it was different from the other stories we had heard about segregation so far (which had all been about characters of African descent). It also tied in nicely with the opening day of the 2018 Olympics.

I have five Korean students and in my class and about a dozen Asian students overall. This was the first read aloud we read this year that had an Asian American character. Have you read books that reflect all your students’ ethnicities this year? I would encourage you to try!

 Themes:
Racism, exclusion, segregation, exclusion, feeling different, setting goals, dreams, athletics, proving oneself, hard work

Type:
Picture Book Biography

Grade Range: 
3-6

Curricular Connections:

Big Ideas:

• Grade 4-5– Career Education
  • Exploring our strengths and abilities can help us identify our goals

Curricular Competencies:

• Grades 4-6 – Career Education
  • Set realistic short- and longer-term learning goals, define a path, and monitor progress.
  • Appreciate the influence of peer relationships, family, and community on personal choices and goals.
• Grades 4-6 – Social Studies
  • Use Social Studies inquiry processes and skills to – ask questions; gather, interpret, and analyze ideas; and communicate findings and decisions
  • Construct arguments defending the significance of individuals/groups, places, events, or developments (significance)
  • Differentiate between short- and long-term causes, and intended and unintended consequences, of events, decisions, or developments (cause and consequence)
  • Take stakeholders’ perspectives on issues, developments, or events by making inferences about their believes, values, and motivations (perspective)
  • Make ethical judgements about events, decisions, or actions that consider the conditions of a particular time and place, and assess appropriate ways to respond (ethical judgement)

Summary: 
Sammy Lee, a Korean American boy, lives in California in the 1930s. Because he is a person of colour he is only allowed to swim in the public pool on Wednesdays. One summer Sammy realizes that he likes to dive…and he’s good at it! His father, a first generation immigrant, wants Sammy to focus instead on becoming a doctor and stop wasting time on diving. Sammy listens but he has other ideas; he wants to be an Olympic diver! When Sammy turns eighteen he is spotted by a coach named Jim Ryan. Ryan tells Sammy he will coach him and digs a sandpit in his backyard so Sammy can practice every day rather than just Wednesday. Sammy learns to dive off a diving board into the sandpit, which means he has to land on his feet so he doesn’t hit his head! He starts taking gymnastics so he can achieve his goal. At the same time, Sammy succeeds in school. He is voted Most Likely to Succeed, elected as student body president, and given a full scholarship. However, he is still subject to racial discrimination; he cannot attend his senior prom because he is not white and he watches people treat his father with disrespect because he is Asian. Sammy starts to understand why his father thinks becoming a doctor will make people respect him. Sammy agrees to become a doctor and his father agrees to let him continue diving as long as he keeps his grades high enough to get into medical school. After lots of hard work and a stint in the United States Army medical training program, Sammy becomes a doctor in 1946. He is given permission to take time off work to train for the 1948 Olympic games. Sammy competes as a member of the U.S. Olympic diving team and wins a bronze and gold medal.  He is the first Asian-American to win a gold medal and the first male diver to win gold diving medals in two back-to-back summer Olympics.

Teaching Tips:

• Examine the first picture with your students. The sign on the pool fence reads “Members Only Except Wednesdays”, but the author says that Wednesdays were the only days that people of colour were allowed into the pool. Why might this be?
  • North American pools have a fascinating history of racial segregation. I have included some interesting links below for further reading. Consider having older students investigate community responses to segregation and desegregation.
    • Transcript of a National Public Radio interview with Jeff Wiltse, author of Contested Waters: A Social History of Swimming Pools in North America.
    • This article by Jeff Wilste reiterates and elaborates on the aforementioned interview. It also includes a video of police and civilian reaction to the McKinney Pool Party incident in 2015. Be warned that the video contains violence and explicit language.
    • This article from the Guardian tells interesting stories about how desegregation lead to a number of pools being paved over and parks being closed down. It also talks about the construction of country clubs in response to desegregation laws.
  • In alignment with the Social Studies Big Idea for grade six, students could examine media portrayals of desegregation across the United States. Include newspaper articles, picture books, novels, films, news coverage, and this book. Contemporary and historical sources could be used. Ask students to examine these sources and attempt to determine their credibility. Have them consider how these portrayals impact the way people viewed and continue to view these events.
  • Encourage students to make connections with other kinds of racial segregation, both historical and contemporary. There were attempts at various times in British Columbia to segregate schools, particularly in areas with a large Asian population. In many areas of North America, schools are virtually segregated today; although laws may not mandate this, socio-economic status makes it a reality. Even within racially-diverse schools we often have segregation in clubs and friend groups; students may wish to discuss this. Encourage students to suggest possible solutions for current issues or alternative solutions for historical issues.

You can buy Sixteen Years in Sixteen Seconds: The Sammy Lee Story here.