Who knew Star Wars would become a cultural icon when the first film premiered in 1977? But it is and probably more popular today than it was in the 70s.

A new book is out to mark the 40th anniversary of the Star Wars movie Return of the Jedi.

It’s called From a Certain Point of View and features 40 writers who were told to watch the film, choose a no-name character with no backstory and tell that character’s story from their point of view.

Patricia Jackson, who is an English teacher at Central York High School and self-identified Star Wars geek, wrote one of the chapters and appeared on The Spark Tuesday,"I wrote for Star Wars a long time ago, about 20 years ago, with a company called West End Games. So this wasn't my first rodeo, but I was very lucky when my agent, Sarah Megabus, wrote to me about a year ago and said, Hey, Patty, would you like to write Star Wars again? And I thought after Disney bought their franchise, I would never be able to get my little fingers on Star Wars again. But here was my chance. All I had to do was watch Return of the Jedi and choose a character that had no backstory. I think I watched the movie way too many times and might need therapy, but I chose the scout trooper who knocked Luke Skywalker off his bike and was able to tell that story, which was super cool."

In Jackson's story, the scout trooper is Black,"When I watched the original Star Wars episode for A New Hope, I went home and wrote my first little novel, and the character that I wrote looked like the character I saw blond hair, blue eyes and white skin. And I grew up believing that was the default for all heroes. So therefore, I could never be the hero. I could never be beautiful. And it wasn't until I was in my fifties that I was like, Wait a minute, wait a minute. You can tell a story where the character looks very much like you. So it was very important to me to include that character as Black in the story."

Jackson said it was important to her that her character was Black and talked about an experience she had as a teacher,"I had a child who was sort of a naughty child who wouldn't come to school. And when we found out we were Star Wars fans,  I told him, if you start coming to school on a regular basis, I will let you read this story. And I walked in across the room as he read the story and his head popped up and he walked over to my desk and he said, Miss, is this character really Black? And I said, Yes, he is. And he was like, Miss, I'm going to hug you. And that's why representation matters. And there was some pushback because in this story I talked about how this scout trooper had to work harder at the academy than his other peers. And there was pushback, "Patty, that suggests racism." Yeah, that's my world. That's what I live in. And there was some push to change it, and I refused to do so. And I probably cost myself a Star Wars contract in the future. I don't care, because it matters to me. And it mattered to that child. And it matters to every Black and brown child out there to be able to see themselves in every franchise and not to have to be something that they're not."

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