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Summary
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in American Street, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Dignity and the American Dream
Spirituality
Family and Loyalty
Identity and the Immigrant Experience
Trauma, Violence, and Desperation
Summary
Analysis
Fabiola wishes she could break the glass that separates her from Manman. The people who “belong here in America” are on one side of the glass, while Fabiola is on the other. A little while ago, Fabiola and Manman went through Customs at JFK Airport. Manman had an envelope of important documents to prove that she has a visa to visit America and that Fabiola is an American-born citizen. Somehow, though, the agents read Fabiola and Manman’s minds and knew they planned to stay in Detroit and leave Haiti forever. A man took Manman away while Fabiola caught their flight from New York to Detroit. Fabiola tells herself that Manman will be on the next flight.
From the moment Fabiola sets foot in the United States, she experiences trauma. Having her mother ripped away from her like this is a shocking, unexpected experience. And Fabiola’s choice to tell herself that Manman will be on the next flight suggests that she’s unwilling or unable to accept the reality of her situation. Manman’s arrest was scary and surreal, and being in a new country without her mother is too painful for Fabiola to accept.
Themes
In Detroit, Fabiola doesn’t have to prove she belongs. She looks around for Manman, but Manman doesn’t appear. Fabiola approaches a uniformed woman and says she’s looking for a Valerie Toussaint flying in from New York, but the woman says that there are no flights from New York until tomorrow, and she points Fabiola to the baggage claim. Desperate, Fabiola explains that her mother is in New York; “they” took her. When the woman asks if Manman has been detained, Fabiola tries to find the Creole or French word for “detained.” She only blinks. Slowly, as though the woman thinks Fabiola is stupid, she tells Fabiola to go to the baggage claim.
This experience with the airport employee is difficult and humiliating for Fabiola. It’s implied that she grew up speaking Haitian Creole and French at home, but now she’s forced to communicate in English, her second language. Fabiola struggles to translate in her head and find the right words for what she’s trying to say, and she takes the employee’s reaction to mean that she’s stupid or inferior.
Themes
Fabiola can’t figure out how to tell the woman that she won’t leave the terminal without Manman. She wants to say that Manman hasn’t seen her older sister, Matant Marjorie, since they were teenagers. The woman, however, steps toward Fabiola and says that she’ll escort Fabiola to the baggage claim. She tells Fabiola to come back tomorrow. At the baggage claim, the woman loads Fabiola’s suitcases onto a cart. Fabiola wants to ask how Manman is supposed to get ready for bed tonight without her toiletries. She’d like to send some toiletries with this woman for Manman, but Fabiola fears that the woman will sell the toiletries in the market, as an officer would do in Port-au-Prince. A man walks Fabiola outside. Fabiola prays that Manman will be here tomorrow to find work, send Fabiola to school for free, and find a good life.
The woman’s brusqueness gives the impression that getting Manman back won’t be an easy process. Fabiola will likely have to jump through bureaucratic hoops to get any information about Manman. Meanwhile, Fabiola feels lost and confused, as she doesn’t yet grasp the culture of the U.S. The idea that the employee would sell Fabiola’s toiletries may seem odd to many readers in the U.S., but it seems to be something that Fabiola witnessed (or at least heard about) in Haiti. In this way, Fabiola is encountering culture shock, a form of trauma in and of itself.
Themes
