Crossroads in American Street by Ibi Zoboi

         Fabiola Toussaint, the protagonist of Ibi Zoboi's debut novel, often finds herself stuck at crossroads where opposing worlds and places converge and collide. She and her mother, Valerie, have left their home in Haiti to live with Valerie’s older sister Marjorie and her daughters Chantal, Donna, and Pri in Detroit, Michigan. However, the journey does not go as planned, and instead, Fabiola and her mother are separated by a glass wall and Customs in Kennedy Airport. Her mother is being detained while Fabiola, born in the U.S., and thus, an American citizen, is allowed to continue to her destination, but now she is alone. At the airport in Detroit, her cousins pick her up, and they must all accept the absence of Valerie. They do not dwell on this reality and try to reassure Fabiola that their mother, her Matant Jo, will bring her mother back.

          A moment that clears the path for a new road is when Chantal, the eldest of the three sisters, acts with tenderness toward her cousin; it is a winter night, and she "takes off her thick, long scarf and wraps it around my shoulders - a gesture that only my mother has ever done for me. Back in Haiti, it was always just me and Manman. But now, my world has ballooned and in it are these three cousins, and my aunt, too. Family takes care of each other, I tell myself. We will get my manman. We leave the airport. It feels like I'm leaving part of me behind - a let, an arm. My whole heart"(13). The rest of the story involves Fabiola's struggle to get her heart back.

          As a high school teenager, Fabiola must traverse many roads on her own, without her mother's guidance. She must learn to live the American way of her cousins and aunt in her new home at the crossroads of American Street and Joy Road, surrounded by abandoned buildings, a "liquor place", and a "God place" (36). She must adjust her eating: "There are only eggs and sliced bread. There are no plantains and avocados to make a complete Haitian breakfast" (36). She must get used to the new landscape: "Nothing here is alive with color like in Haiti. The sun hides behind a concrete sky... But God has painted this place gray and brown. Only a thin white sheet of snow covers the burned-out houses and buildings" (47). She must adjust to a new school, the private school that Donna and Pri attend. She meets new people at Dray, Donna's boyfriend's birthday party. Here she encounters archetypal characters who she had often been warned about in Haiti: vabagon, people who lead to nothing but trouble, and malfekte, people who are evil. But she also meets Kasim, a charismatic shapeshifter who associates with Dray, the malfekte, but in reality, is a lover, and he helps to fill the void left by her mother's absence. While there are many conflicts caused by the convergence of divergent paths and characters, Fabiola settles into her new life with great determination to find the way to her heart, her mother.

          Another crossroad where conflict exists is between reader and narrator. Throughout the book, I doubted and questioned Fabiola's trust in the Iwas and her belief that Bad Leg, the local vagabond who sings on the corner outside her house, is Papa Legba. She explains who this religious deity is to her cousins: "He is the Iwa of crossroads. When there's no way, Papa Legba will make a way. He opens doors and unlocks gates...I have to pray to him so he can help my mother come to this side" (34). Fabiola listens to this homeless man's songs and believes they are prophecies, and she bases many of her choices on his lyrics. To me, she is naive, and it frustrates me that she makes decisions based on spiritual reckoning rather than reason. At the same time, this tension keeps readers engaged and committed to Fabiola's journey.

          For a short while, her life moves along a peaceful path. She is able to unite her Haitian and American cultures as she makes Thanksgiving dinner for the first time. As Fabiola concocts her own versions of traditional dishes, she finds herself "at peace" and in her element: "I let the warmth of the house wrap around me. I let the scents of my food fill me up with nothing but joy, because this moment is like a hug from God" (230). I, too, relish this moment because I can relate to the power of food to stir up sentiments of belonging and familial love. The kitchen is a place where cultures can cross and meet in surprising ways, where people, especially recent immigrants, can find comfort despite the strains of assimilation and alienation.

          

          Soon after this meal, Fabiola collides with several unexpected obstructions. The obstructions involve truths about her Detroit family, a female law enforcer named Detective Stevens who enlists her help to arrest suspects involved in the death of a white female from a lethal cocktail of designer drugs, and Dray and Kasim. A series of unfortunate events occur and she struggles to find her way out of the wreckage. In the end, we find where the roads lead to, and we are left wondering, does Bad Leg/Papa Legba really open up the way for her or is it the manifestation of the American Dream? What roads will open for her now?

         

           

Highs and Lows

Thursday, November 30th began with celebration of my son Emerson’s 8th birthday. In the morning, he blew out a candle on a pumpkin chocolate chip muffin, and we sang Happy Birthday and gave him gifts: a Justice League comic book, Green Lantern action figure, and dozens of kisses. The day was filled with moments of nostalgia, recounting his birth in 2009 at St. Vincent’s Hospital, looking back at historical pictures of the first time meeting his sister, Ate Jazzy, several toddler pictures of him holding a plastic bat or empty beer bottles (don't worry; my husband and I drank the beer). Throughout the day, my son was treated like a local celebrity, his family, friends, teachers, and classmates giving him extra attention. It was a day of delights, including a dinner of Japanese food, his preferred cuisine.

The celebratory spirit dwindled around bedtime when I noticed nits in his hair and had to spend 45 minutes combing through and eradicating them, something I have had to do several times since the kids started elementary school. By the time I was done, there were no tears; just strands of hair and exhausted bodies.

Around 9:30, the whole family was asleep though I could not go to bed because my blood sugar had risen above 250. One device that helps me manage diabetes is a Dexcom continuous glucose monitor (CGM); when blood sugar is above 180, it beeps every fifteen minutes; this constant sound does not allow one to sleep. Instead, I took a correction bolus of insulin, went to the attic to do yoga, meditation, and read a few chapters of Wonder. Eventually, my blood sugar normalized and I went to bed.

Unrest became a theme of the night. I had a dreadful dream: I was at a forum where Trump was yelling rhetoric against immigrants and spitting into a microphone then he came over to me and yelled at me, words I don’t recall. I remember feeling powerless and angry. Then I made a poster and wrote the word HOPE in bold letters. This woke me up around four a.m. along with a beeping CGM; this time, low blood sugar: 70.

Again I awoke, having to confront the horrifying reality that the man I dreaded in my dream is still POTUS. This is the most unbearable hardship, worse than lice or diabetes; at least the latter areas are manageable and in my control. When my sugar is high, take insulin; when low, load up on carbohydrates. When most of the US government supports a tax plan that will benefit the top 1% of the nation and add to the national debt, when the president vilifies and ousts young Dreamers but does not vilify men in government who have been accused of sexual harassment, it is difficult to stay positive.

My dream, however, reminds me of the importance of HOPE. We must work together as a democracy, regardless of political parties, to equally distribute power and wealth, and to act with more integrity and decency toward all citizens, documented or undocumented. To voice my concerns about the current GOP tax plan, I called NY Senator Kirsten Gillibrand (212-688-6262) and Congressman Dan Donovan (718-351-1062). The least we can do as constituents is talk to our elected officials about current policy.

The only nightmare we cannot awake from is that of silence and inaction. The only way to have hope is to have and share a voice, to take action against injustice and oppression. There is an imbalance of power in this country that threatens our democracy. In order to celebrate our nation, our democracy, we must work together to balance our highs and lows.