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A review by kentanapages
Brown Girls by Daphne Palasi Andreades
challenging
emotional
hopeful
informative
reflective
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? N/A
5.0
Beautiful, profound, poetic, raw. I did the audiobook and loved it, but there were so many parts I want to reread, that I am buying the physical book. I definitely recommend starting with the audiobook and hearing it that way though!
"Sub-subtext: we are SO American we believe our college degrees have nothing to do with skills and salaries; this is our privilege."
"...we take note of the many hospitals and schools named after people whose life missions they believed were to uplift savage nations. Understand, in a way we hadn't realized before, we are the descendents of these so-called savage people. Colonized, forever changed, but still here."
"We do not view these sites and tastes and histories as contradictory, inconsistent. Brown girls, brown girls, brown girls who, in their bones, are beginning to understand that they are the sum of many identities, many histories at once. The colonized, the colonizers. Where do we fall?"
"Here are the registers where people were forced to change their names to Spanish, English, French, Dutch ones. Santos, Diaz, James, Roberts.... here are the churches where natives were told to convert. Here are the red light districts that have sprung up beside naval bases--supply and demand, you know?"
"Here are the call centers where, even though Americans get angry because they claim they can't understand the workers' accents, the workers say they're still grateful to make nine dollars an hour; that's a fortune here."
"We leave. We leave, we leave. We always leave. It is in our blood to leave. But perhaps it's also in our blood to return. Why did we ever believe home could only be one place, when existing in these bodies means holding many worlds within us? At last, we see."
"What you're saying is unnatural, unwomanly. Are you that selfish? Because isn't childbirth what we've all been taught to aspire to? 'Raise a famiy in the image of yourself--oops! God.' 'Your life will change completely when you have kids.' 'You will never know true love until you become a parent.' Or so we've been told."
"Sub-subtext: we are SO American we believe our college degrees have nothing to do with skills and salaries; this is our privilege."
"...we take note of the many hospitals and schools named after people whose life missions they believed were to uplift savage nations. Understand, in a way we hadn't realized before, we are the descendents of these so-called savage people. Colonized, forever changed, but still here."
"We do not view these sites and tastes and histories as contradictory, inconsistent. Brown girls, brown girls, brown girls who, in their bones, are beginning to understand that they are the sum of many identities, many histories at once. The colonized, the colonizers. Where do we fall?"
"Here are the registers where people were forced to change their names to Spanish, English, French, Dutch ones. Santos, Diaz, James, Roberts.... here are the churches where natives were told to convert. Here are the red light districts that have sprung up beside naval bases--supply and demand, you know?"
"Here are the call centers where, even though Americans get angry because they claim they can't understand the workers' accents, the workers say they're still grateful to make nine dollars an hour; that's a fortune here."
"We leave. We leave, we leave. We always leave. It is in our blood to leave. But perhaps it's also in our blood to return. Why did we ever believe home could only be one place, when existing in these bodies means holding many worlds within us? At last, we see."
"What you're saying is unnatural, unwomanly. Are you that selfish? Because isn't childbirth what we've all been taught to aspire to? 'Raise a famiy in the image of yourself--oops! God.' 'Your life will change completely when you have kids.' 'You will never know true love until you become a parent.' Or so we've been told."