Identity and the Immigrant Experience Theme Analysis

Moving to Detroit from Haiti is a shocking, uncomfortable experience for Fabiola—especially because her mother, Manman, is detained and so doesn’t accompany Fabiola to live with Matant Jo and Fabiola’s cousins. Feeling alone and unmoored, Fabiola has to confront the fact that in her cousins’ eyes, she looks too Haitian—while Fabiola’s American-born cousins Pri and Donna look embarrassingly American to her. With these difference, the novel suggests that the quest to find one’s identity as an immigrant is a process that’s difficult and anxiety-inducing, no matter what—and for many, that quest is never complete.

From the moment Fabiola sets foot in Matant Jo’s home, she must confront the fact that being an American means that she’s going to have to give up on aspects of Haitian culture, even within her own home—something the novel suggests is uniquely traumatizing. For Fabiola’s entire life, she’s known her aunt as Matant Jo. When Fabiola spoke on the phone with her aunt throughout her childhood, they spoke Creole. It’s understandably shocking, then, when Matant Jo insists on being called Aunt Jo and threatens to punish Fabiola anytime she uses a Creole word. Since Fabiola expected to be welcomed with open arms into an extended Haitian community in Detroit, this is unsettling and even traumatizing. Fabiola thinks of herself as both Haitian and American, since she grew up in Haiti but was born and spent the first three months of her life in the United States. Having her aunt—someone she loves and trusts, and who has financially supported her for her entire life—essentially tell her that her Haitian identity is unacceptable makes Fabiola fear that she’ll never find a home in Detroit.

As Fabiola gets to know her cousins, though, she discovers that it’s not just recently arrived immigrants like her who struggle to with a dual identity. Rather, all immigrants—whether first- or second-generation, and no matter how American they may seem—feel the strain of a dual identity, to varying degrees. This becomes particularly clear to Fabiola as she becomes closer with her older cousin Chantal, with whom she shares a room. At 19, Chantal was born in Haiti and immigrated to Detroit with Matant Jo when she was a toddler. But despite having lived in Detroit almost all her life, she still feels burdened by her Haitian roots. For instance, she tells Fabiola that when she was nine and her father, Phillip, was murdered, it fell to her—as someone fluent in Creole and in English—to translate newspaper articles and conversations with the detectives. She frames her identity in terms of having American skin and Haitian bones and muscles. Her Haitian identity is embedded within her and isn’t something she can or even wants to escape, but having this dual identity poses its own problems (like losing her innocence by translating the news of her father’s murder). With this, the novel suggests that people who immigrate as small children are often forced to grow up and assume adult responsibilities long before they’re ready to do so. It’s possible to see Chantal’s parental role with her sisters as a product of her traumatic coming-of-age process.

While Matant Jo urges her daughters and niece to assimilate into American culture, the novel proposes that for the sake of one’s mental and emotional health, it’s essential to hold onto elements of one’s home culture. For Fabiola, this means clinging tightly to her Vodou spiritual practices, which help her make sense of the confusing things she encounters in Detroit even as she becomes more American in other ways. And indeed, Chantal, Pri, and Donna all seem more confident and self-assured as they start to take Fabiola’s Vodou seriously. Connecting with their Haitian heritage through Vodou helps Fabiola’s cousins feel more at home in Detroit.

However, one’s relationship to traditional cultural elements or customs is never static. In other words, it’s possible to have a multifaceted identity that’s constantly shifting and adapting. Fabiola begins to feel more American when Matant Jo gave her pocket money, and when she learns to write research papers in a way that will please her American teachers. But Fabiola also finds ways to hold onto her Haitian roots, such as when Matant Jo leaves her to prepare the Thanksgiving turkey. Rather than cook the bird whole, Fabiola prepares a version of a traditional Haitian dish where the turkey is cut into smaller pieces, fried, and put in a tomato sauce. The turkey—a symbol of American Thanksgiving—is made undeniably Haitian thanks to Fabiola’s preparation method. Fabiola also comes to the conclusion that Pri and Donna aren’t less Haitian just because they grew up in Detroit. The fact that they didn’t grow up speaking Creole or practicing Vodou doesn’t preclude them from identifying as Haitian; they can always make a point to learn more about their culture, thereby creating richer, more well-rounded identities for themselves. With this, the novel proposes that especially for immigrants, the process of figuring out one’s identity is never over. As new immigrants like Fabiola assimilate into American culture or as second-generation immigrants like Pri and Donna reconnect with their roots, they are constantly learning who they are as Haitians and as Americans.