Recitatif – Armand
- I think the key point to identifying the two main characters’ races and the issue surrounding it is in their 4th encounter in which Twyla and Roberta got into a heated argument about the busing. The issue that seems to divide them is the symbol of riding the bus. Drawing on Rosa Parks’s bus boycott conflict, with Roberta being against the busing implementation and Twyla supporting it, I think it’s safe to say that Roberta is white while Twyla is black. This is probably because, in Roberta’s defense, she doesn’t want her [white] kid to be mixed in with [black] kids.
- As a Filipino immigrant who came into the United States roughly 3 years ago, I was really anxious about transferring schools because I wasn’t really fluent in speaking English, even though the Philippines has already been Americanized. First days of classes were really hard on me because I was always anxious about speaking with a pretty thick Filipino accent. I also didn’t know about the ins and outs of the US college curriculum because I came to find out that it is very different from what I had back home. Fortunately, I got around to making some friends to make the transition a little bit easier, especially in Baruch where there is student club about Filipino culture and is comprised of Filipinos. There’s only a handful of them who can still speak the Filipino language, Tagalog, but I can’t complain. Adapting in a new environment is a lot easier when you have friends of the same feather.
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Armand, I am thinking about the last line of your response and how much more comfortable we feel when we have someone “like us” to be with. That idea brings me back to the initial bond between Twyla and Roberta. Their racial difference here seems much less important than the fact that they both know what it’s like to have mothers who are not able to care for them adequately.