Connector

Connector (pg 172- 258) - Sam Trejo :)

Through out these pages Lutie talks a lot about how Harlem is and how typical it is to see and hear so much violence, and also the segregation that she sees in the book. This connects to the reality of how it was in Harlem in the 1940's and in other big cities around this time and also how segregation was in the black folks point of view. "And it wasn't just this city. It was any city where they set up a line and say black folks stay on this side and white folks on this side, so that the black folks were crammed on top of each other.."(Petry 206) Other than segregation there was a lot of violence that Lutie saw, like the man who got stabbed after trying to hold up the bakery for some bread and died. When Lutie saw the man laying there she saw how small and fragil he was, then she saw a girl walk up to the body and the police asked if she could recognize the body, it was her brother. Lutie was amazed on how expressionless her face was, as if this were typical to see a brother die everyday. "As quickly as it came, it was gone and it was replaced by a look of resignation, of complete acceptance."(Petry 197). As disturbing and shocking as it might sound, the truth is that in real life things were just like this and maybe even worse. But that is what makes these books so impacting and real to me :).

Connector- Ashley Martinez

After reading to page 86, I felt that everything that I read could happen in real life. I know that there are thousands of single women (black or white) rising children on their own. Having to work numerous jobs just to make ends meet; being away from home to bring in money. Lutie's marriage even falls apart because she's gone from home, taking care of another family. I think that my grandma Clara, on my dad's side is the person that I can connect Lutie to. She is a hispanic/Italian woman who got a divorce at an early point in her marriage. She basically had to raise three children on her own, while working two jobs. All she wanted for her children was a good education and good morals. Lutie wants the same thing for Bub. For example, Lutie caught Bub shoeshining on the street and got really upset that he was doing so. She didn't want him to be a shoe-shiner because she thought that he would end up doing the "hard", "dirty" work for the rest of his life. "...you're [Lutie] afraid that this street will keep him from finishing high school; that it may do worse than that and get him into some kind of trouble..(Petry 67).

Also, like many black women in the 1940's, Lutie experiences racial rejection from many white women. "...the hostility in the eyes of the white women who stared at her on the downstreets and the subways.." (Petry 57). This is still happening today. So far, in the stroy, I agree that everything can happen in real life. So much has happened already to this woman and it's definitely relateable.