Nathanael Santagata doesn’t appear by any stereotypical standards to be any part African – his Italian and Polish heritage comes through much more apparently – but that doesn’t change the fact that he possesses a little Moroccan DNA within his chromosomes.

That fact perfectly sums up the moral of his self-published children’s book “Spacist,” a creatively illustrated tale of an artistic alien who sets out to sketch a newly-discovered species of sentient beings – humans – and in the process learns about the concept of ethnicity and race.

Santagata visited Oakland Beach Elementary School on Tuesday afternoon to read his finished book to Catherine Davis-Hayes’s sixth-grade class as a part of his senior project at Toll Gate High School. He provided cookies for the kids and Davis-Hayes spread out large sheets of paper for the students to sketch out thoughts and questions as they listened to the story unfold.

The book follows the adventures of Cudzy, a blue-skinned extraterrestrial artist who is tasked with traveling to Earth to sketch one example of a human being for his boorish boss to hang on his mantle. Cudzy first lands in Egypt and meets an African named Mitaa, who has a dark skin tone and hair that is “sheepish” (like wool).

Cudzy then lands in Paris and meets a fair-skinned, beret-donning French woman named Rosé. From there, Cudzy then finds himself under the shade of some fully bloomed cherry blossom trees in the garden of Japanese prince Jimoto, and the two share tea. Finally, Cudzy meets a Central American woman at the top of a grand stone temple named Maya, who mistakes Cudzy for a god finally arriving after being pleased with her peoples’ practice of offering human sacrifices.

Cudzy returns to his boss after sketching the four characters, but the boss demands to only be given the sketch of the race that is most superior – or else he’ll fire Cudzy. However Cudzy, through his conversations with each different character, has come to learn that no one race can claim superiority over the other and that they are equal in being humans, and he quits his job before he can be fired, leaving with his head held high.

Throughout the reading, Santagata asked the students if they felt his portrayal of any particular character was insensitive, offensive or even outwardly racist. The intention of the book, he later said, is to get kids interested and talking about their own race and heritage – and he fully expects some kids to be more critical of his character portrayals than others may be.

Santagata introduced students to the concept of positive and negative stereotypes. Maya’s character, for example, could be seen as a negative stereotype, since not all people from Central America – even in the days of the Aztecs and Mayans, as this character was portrayed – practiced human sacrifice as a way of appeasing what they believed were gods. However, it is historical fact that some Central American societies did indeed engage in this practice. The book, therefore, forces kids to think critically about such portrayals.

“A person’s character does not come from where they come from or what color they are,” Santagata said during one of his interludes reading the book. “I thought it would be a good topic to write about because it [the concept of race] is so relevant in this world…I want you to be proud of what makes you difference and to embrace those differences and your own culture and ethnicity.”

Davis-Hayes had previously taught Santagata in her class at Warwick Neck Elementary, and she helped him with the publishing of the book through her connections at the Rhode Island School of Design, where she also works. The book was published via the Blurb and BookWright.com online book publishing services.

The writing, crafted in an impressive, rhyming form throughout, took Santagata about three days. The illustrations took about three to four months to complete. Santagata joked he will likely never draw the character of Cudzy again due to the number of times he had to do so. The book is dedicated to Christopher Sahagian, the father of Santagata’s friend who recently passed away.

Going forward, Santagata hopes to attend CCRI for two years before transferring to Rhode Island College to pursue a dream of becoming an English teacher.