Introduction:
My name is Yun-A Johnson and I will be critically analyzing and comparing two books: When Africa was Home by Karen L. Williams and The First Part Last by Angela Johnson. These two books each address a certain social issue by showing it through the experience of one main character. Yet, how these stories are told, the words used and the words left out, cause one book to perpetuate stereotypes while the other book avoids stereotyping.
Analysis:
When Africa was Home brings up issues of cross-culture experiences and what defines home. This is shown through little Peter’s experience of growing up in Africa and feeling at home there but then having to move away, back to America which his parent’s consider home but he doesn’t. When Peter goes to the U.S., many things feel strange to him such as how people talk and objects like vacuum cleaners. These are good points for discussion about moving and what makes you feel at home.
However, something I found to be very problematic with this book, is the title which is often a phrase repeated in the book “When Africa was home”. This illustrates a common mistake made when talking about Africa by referring to the huge continent as if it is one country. This is a problem because it disregards all the diverse cultures and languages that exist within Africa. Even among the 74 countries there are sometimes hundreds of different tribes and languages within one country. Calling Africa home makes it seem that the customs referred to in the book are the same everywhere in Africa which they are not.
This assumption is not only problematic because it can be misleading but also because it alludes to a general underlying attitude of not caring to know about the individual countries within the continent; just knowing about one culture is enough to get an idea of what Africa is like. This is not just an attitude toward Africa but is also the reverse is seen sometimes in references to many Asian customs, people, or languages being referred to first as Chinese even though they are not.
While the book does bring up good points about cross-cultural experiences this makes it easier to overlook the two stereotypes discussed. I was especially disappointed by this book because it had the potential to break stereotypes. The author, who appears to be a family member of Peter’s, dedicated the book ‘to help him remember his days in Africa’. The author obviously had more knowledge of the specific African country as shown by the use of Chichewa words throughout the book, but still decides to speak generally of Africa. It is as if Williams decided to oversimplify so that readers would recognize it which I think is the wrong mentality because books are used to learn. Also many people do not have the opportunity to travel to the continent so they rely on information from those who have.
In The First Part Last the issue is teen parenthood, and this is shown through Bobby’s experience as a taking care of his baby daughter, Feather, while also trying to finish school, and grow up himself. Johnson is able to portray these challenges in a very relatable way because the book goes back and forth between the present and the past. So the reader is able to see all the changes Bobby faced and the decisions he had to make during the pregnancy and after.
The story is written in first person from the perspective of Bobby and because of this the reader has no explicit knowledge about the race or socioeconomic status of the characters in the book. Bobby doesn’t analyze his life in terms of race or class, it is just his life and that is how it is. The focus of the story is all about the emotional experiences of Bobby and his family with sad, stressful, and happy moments. This is very realistic and refreshing because often literature on teen parenthood is discussed in terms of demographics and statistics, not the personal experiences.
Johnson is very clever in writing the book this way because it leaves a lot up to the reader’s imagination which causes readers, including myself, to question their own assumptions about the characters. One example of this is in the first chapter when the main character is talking about bringing Feather home from the hospital, I just assumed the main character was a girl. So I was surprised to find in the next chapter that it was in fact the teen dad talking. From the beginning of the book the author is challenging the idea of stereotypes, knowing that most readers assume that a story about teen parenthood will be told from the mother’s perspective. Since the societal norm seems to be that teen moms are taking care of their babies and the dad’s are often out of the picture.
Another reason the author may have told the story from a teen father’s perspective is to not to exclude boys from topic of teen parenthood and responsibilities associated with it. It is a good book for discussion about the issue because it illustrates how challenging being a teen parent really is and how dramatically it changes a person’s life.
The two examples of these books show the ways in which stereotypes are perpetuated or challenged. Most of this has to do with the positioning and careful attention to what assumptions are being implied.
