Non-Fiction "Coming of Age," Narratives

The latter part of Moody's autobiographical work carries her into the 1960s and the flowering of the civil rights movement, but the part of the book which deals with the 1950s highlights the oppression which blacks experienced at a time when whites were enjoying the juiciest fruits of the American Dream. The book is most useful in illuminating the dark underbelly of the American Dream in the 1950s.

The first words of Moody's book give the reader the sense of the deep scars which have been inflicted on her by racism: "I'm still haunted by dreams of the time we lived on Mr. Carter's plantation" (11). Moody's childhood in the 1950s gives no sign of the guarded optimism which will come in the 1960s. The hunger and poverty of her and her family are exacerbated by the violence which grows from suffering and frustration.

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man shocks her from the idealism of literature into the horrors of the real world of America: Before Emmett Till's murder, I had known the fear of hunger, hell and the Devil. But now there was a new fear known to me---the fear of being killed just because I was black. . . . I began to hate people (Moody 125, 129). What saves Moody from a life of hatred and fear is her introduction to the organized struggle of blacks and sympathetic whites for racial justice and equality. Moody's struggle to become educated, to find a better paying job, to enter the struggle of her people as a part of an organized movement are all demonstrations of the lie of the stereotypes about blacks that prevailed in the 1950s. Her book portrays racism at its worst, but also exposes the stereotypes upon which racism is based--that blacks are lazy, that they cannot or should not be educated, that they cannot work together to better themselves. Instead of giving up on the American Dream, Moody fights to force the country to live up to the principles upon which that Dream is based. Just as Moody writes in order to portray racism against blacks in America, Trujillo writes to portray racism against Chicanos. Like Moody, Trujillo also expresses not only ra
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Approximate Word count = 1607
Approximate Pages = 6 (250 words per page)

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