Race in Caucasia

I read the article "What is Race, Anyway?" It talked about how interracial marriages have quadrupled in the last 20 years. The article was written in 1994, so there probably has been an even greater increase since then. It is because of this that many people have a hard time deciding which race to select on surveys.

This would definitely hold true for Birdie. She started out as a child, and did not really notice a difference between her and Cole. Throughout interactions with other people, she gradually realizes people view her and Cole differently. An example of this would be when they went to school. The other students made fun of Birdie for having lighter skin, while they accepted Cole because she was more black. Only after Cole sticks up for her does Birdie start getting any respect. After Cole and her father leave for Brazil, and Birdie and her mom flee, Birdie gradually starts becoming more white. She goes back and forth between being black or white, often questioning her past. She gradually decides that she is black. They settle in New Hampshire in a mostly white town. Birdie begins to drift away from her mother when she meets Jim. She becomes friends with Mona, and tries to become more of a white girl, even laughing at jokes degrading black people. When she sees Samantha, she thinks of Cole, and it kind of opened her eyes again. The family then goes to New York, where Birdie starts dancing along to rap music and defends the black teenagers who threw a rock at the car. She feels like an outsider to the white people around her, wants to get away, and eventually runs away.

Clearly, race is not just as simple as skin color. Many people would have considered Birdie "white," but she felt black. This brings up the question why do we even need these categories? The article suggested two ideas for the categories. First, they are there to protect groups harmed in the past. Once the groups are more even, the categories can be removed. Another idea is that the categories will disappear overtime when interracial marriage becomes as common as same-race marriages.

Beginning of Caucasia

I was a little surprised on how much their family grew apart in the first part of the book. The family wasn't perfect to start off, they had their share of fights, but I thought they would remain closer. We can tell from the book that this is a very controversial time period, where I thought they might have put more effort to try to keep the family together. It is probably because of this time period that the family does end up coming apart. The parents start arguing even more than usual, and Deck eventually leaves because he is sick of all of the visitors the mom has over. As the girls keep visiting him, he eventually starts paying attention to Cole only. He can barely look at Birdie when he is trying to talk to Cole. Deck also gets a girlfriend, Carmen, who pays all of her attention to Cole just as he does. Finally, Deck, Carmen, and Cole head to Brazil; leaving Birdie alone with her mom. They change their identities to Jesse and Sheila, and flee town. After four years they still have not met up with Cole and Deck. They travel around for a while, but finally stop for a while in New Hampshire.

One question that I had was what did the mom actually do? We were never actually really told but there are some possible clues. She held secret meetings in the basement every week, and one night a van full of duffel bags was unloaded into the basement. They probably contained guns and other weapons, which suggests violence. The mom ran out of money and had to borrow from their grandmother, whom she really dislikes. They feel like they are constantly being watched by the FBI, had to run away from home, and change their identities. Birdie is never allowed to discuss the basement or FBI, which supports they are somehow related and whatever happened was probably not something good.