Jasmin Aleman
Post reading questions chapters 15-26
Core class
Prof. Watkins
1. In Part Two, Helene moves to Kentucky, then North Carolina. Her family experiences poverty, losing their house and their car. Is Helene now the stereotype of the poor, black, Southern teenager? Why or why not?
Helene had the mentality of being a privileged and educated Congo teenager. She settled in the most segregated part of America, which is the south, and to people in Kentucky and North Carolina, Helene was just any black girl. They never saw her as privileged or different from the rest of the black population. It was almost this culture shock to her because she wouldn’t understand why people would look down on her when she was always raised to be upper class since she was born. Now that her family barely gets by financially she is living a completely different life than she did in Sugar Beach. Her family was barely able to pay the bills, she and her sister had to ride the bus, and the food was different. “ ‘You two are going to be taking the school bus,’ Daddy told me and Marlene. We were both appalled…’Daddy I hold your foot,’ I begged.” Both Helene and Marlene were not happy about this and this is where it hit them that they were not going to be privileged Congo girls anymore. She eventually did become this stereotype but never really took into consideration.
2. In Ch. 23, the author describes her writing assignments in the South, focusing on issues of race, education, and economics. Why do you think she mentions this? In terms of her political and social beliefs, whose side is she on? In terms of her life experience, whose side has she experienced?
I believe she mentions those topics because it was her reality that she faced when she came to America. She came from Liberia where to her race was not really an issue and she was well off financially. When she came to America she began to realize what these topics were about and how unfair they were. She was on the side where it was morally right to her and what she thought was right. She wrote about things she had a passion for and that was to have people who were belittle, a voice.
3. Later in Ch 23, the author describes becoming a US citizen and an international reporter. Interspersing excerpts from articles written by other people about Liberia with excerpts of the articles she was writing at the same time. Why? What does this juxtaposition tell us?
I believe that she interspersed those