Spirituality Theme Analysis

In Haiti, Fabiola’s mother, Manman, was a mambo, or a priestess of Haitian Vodou. When Manman is detained upon entering the U.S., forcing Fabiola to enter the country and start her new life with her aunt and cousins alone, Fabiola does her best to maintain her spiritual relationships with the lwas (Vodou spirits). Fabiola’s spirituality allows her to see her cousins and peers as human iterations of lwas, interpret things as signs, and ultimately manipulate events through prayer. American Street thus portrays spirituality as something sacred but also as something that’s a normal part of daily life. And given that Fabiola’s new reality in Detroit is so strange and dangerous, her spirituality is also an important source of comfort and security—and, possibly, a way for her to control things that she otherwise couldn’t.

The novel initially portrays spirituality as an antidote to loneliness—and, in some ways, as a stand-in for close familial relationships. Fabiola’s first night in Detroit is difficult at best: after being separated from Manman at the JFK airport, Fabiola is reeling from the loss of her closest supporter and spiritual guide. And to make matters worse, Fabiola’s Matant Jo and her cousins Chantal, Pri, and Donna don’t welcome her with the traditional Haitian feast and neighborhood party that Fabiola expects. Instead, Fabiola is left to feed herself in their poorly stocked kitchen—and the food in the kitchen is nothing like Fabiola is used to. Feeling hungry and alone, Fabiola promptly constructs her Vodou shrine so she can pray for guidance and for Manman. These first prayers in the U.S. give Fabiola a vision of Manman in the detention center, which allows Fabiola to feel close to Manman—and they also make Fabiola feel like she’s doing something to bring Manman to her. Praying, at this point, is as much a way to feel fulfilled spiritually as it is a way to feel close to Manman and feel more in control of a frightening situation.

As the weeks wear on and as Fabiola encounters more scary situations, she starts to gain a sense of control by reframing her experiences in terms of Vodou spirituality. Religion, in this case, is a useful lens for understanding her new world. For instance, during Fabiola’s first week in Detroit, she meets a homeless man who’s known to the neighborhood as Bad Leg. Most people believe that Bad Leg is a mentally unstable drug addict—but Fabiola is convinced that he’s a living version of the lwa of the crossroads, Papa Legba. Meanwhile, Donna’s abusive boyfriend Dray looks like the lwa Baron Samedi, the warden of the cemetery. Later, when a detective contacts Fabiola and promises to get Manman out of the detention center in exchange for Fabiola’s help convicting Dray of dealing drugs that killed a young white woman, Fabiola becomes increasingly confident in her ability to channel and interpret the lwas’ messages. Indeed, it’s essential that she hone this skill if she wants to free Manman and save Donna from Dray’s abuse. With this, Fabiola’s spirituality helps her develop confidence and feel safer. For instance, Fabiola finds Dray terrifying as a person—but when she thinks of him as Baron Samedi, she’s able to reframe the situation and feel that she, as a Vodou practitioner, has the upper hand.

However, spirituality also provides difficult lessons in humility and limits; even a budding mambo like Fabiola cannot expect to control everything. When Fabiola discovers that it’s actually her cousins and not Dray who sold the lethal drugs, she decides that Dray should still take the fall for killing the white woman. For Fabiola, framing Dray—who deals drugs, but is innocent in this case—is worth it if it means she gets Manman back; Dray stops abusing Donna; and her cousins stop selling drugs. She hatches a plan to fabricate a doom-filled vision so as to scare her cousins away from dealing at a party, while calling on the lwa of fertility and using her own sexuality to convince Dray to sell at the party instead. But though Fabiola carefully crafts her prayers and lays what she assumes will be a trap for Dray, the police don’t get Dray—instead, they shoot Kasim, who’s one of Dray’s best friends and the boy Fabiola has been falling in love with. Fabiola didn’t know enough about how dealing works for her plan to be effective. She had no idea that a high-powered dealer like Dray wouldn’t go to a party himself to sell—he’d send a surrogate, like Kasim. In this sense, Fabiola discovers that Vodou may provide comfort and a sense of control, but it’s not something she can totally manipulate to serve her own purposes. Indeed, trying to do so can bring about terrible consequences.

But despite this, Fabiola’s spirituality still protects her, guides her, and extends protections to those she loves—just in ways that she might not be able to foresee or control. Most notably, when Dray shows up at Matant Jo’s house to get revenge on Fabiola for bringing about Kasim’s death, it’s Bad Leg—Papa Legba—who shoots Dray just as Dray is about to murder Fabiola. And further, the novel implies that Bad Leg is indeed Papa Legba in that he gets away with murder, a privilege only afforded to lwas. Furthermore, Fabiola’s prayers for Manman to return to her end up paying off, as Fabiola and her family will be able to fetch Manman from the airport the day after the novel ends (the detective makes good on her promise to speed up Manman’s processing, even though Fabiola technically doesn’t hold up her end of their bargain). With this, the novel suggests that spirituality can indeed provide comfort, bring families together, and rescue people from abuse and prosecution—but it’s impossible to control how or when those things will happen.