“Why Do You Look So Exotic?”
Jaya Harrover Saxena
Astoria, NY
My dad moved to America from India as a child. My mom’s family has been in America since the 1630s. I have always been me.
Mother gave me a different world.
Mary Horton
Richmond, VA
I didn’t realize until shortly before her death how different the world my mother gave me was from the one she was raised in. My mother had Alzheimer’s, and in the last few years of her life, she reverted to some of the attitudes and behaviors she had learned while growing up in rural Virginia in the 1930s and 1940s. I saw her use language and do things that were not tolerated in our home in the early 1960s. I am grateful that she changed and didn’t burden me with what she struggled to cast off.
Crudely Awakened from a Deep Sleep
USA.
In the novel Invisible Man, a black man in 1930s America struggles to find his identity. He starts out as hopeful and naive, believing that his hard work, determination, and intelligence will lead to eventual success and happiness. He does not realize, until the end of the novel, that the white characters and most of society only see him as a black man and that his destiny has been predetermined.
Thumbsucking doesn’t turn your skin black!
-Anonymous,
Minneapolis, MN
Heard this in rural South Dakota, Late 1930’s early 40’s
