ull-participant. She experiences some acceptance among white people at school, but the sense of being "other" is always with her: "Since she came to England, she had noticed that many white people did not actually insult her parents, but they treated them as if they were not there. And whenever her mother tried to communicate with any of them, they made her repeat herself several times. Consequently, she clamped her lips whenever they were outside their flat. Her mother, however, did not mind the whites' indifference. She was used to it" (72).
Much of Gwendolen's alienation proceeds from the experience of the British class system, which is itself built around the definition of self that proceeds from the use of English. Initially she does not understand that the broken English of her and her parents and her inability to pronounce or respond to her correctly pronounced name mark her as "ignorant poor" and subject her to a full range of assumptions on the part of the mainstream and minorities with mainstream aspirations such as Gladys. Meanwhile, she becomes estranged from her mother Sonia, who "wanted Gwendolen to come to England and help her with the housework and looking after the others. But [Sonia] did not take into account that in doing so, Gwendolen would become confident and free like the English girls" (90
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