Campus Reading Program notes: Set in Portland, OR. Large part about the drug war. Written with a mixture of slang and academic prose. Goes into black history of Oregon.
So many books about the black community are set in New York or Los Angeles. This story set in Portland provides insight into a community with no segregation past (they used exclusion instead) and focuses on one family’s challenges with advancing. The patriarch moves to Portland in WWII to build ships at Kaiser Steel. The succeeding generations cope with the post-Civil Rights evolution of America, including the drug trade. It is a very personal and compelling story that might attract SJSU students because it is an immigrant story, albeit internal immigration. It leads to many discussion opportunities, like the role of the community in self development, the ability of a person to break free of community cultural norms, the challenges of dealing with overt discrimination and covert economic stifling.
Campus Reading Program notes: Set in Portland, OR. Large part about the drug war. Written with a mixture of slang and academic prose. Goes into black history of Oregon.
So many books about the black community are set in New York or Los Angeles. This story set in Portland provides insight into a community with no segregation past (they used exclusion instead) and focuses on one family’s challenges with advancing. The patriarch moves to Portland in WWII to build ships at Kaiser Steel. The succeeding generations cope with the post-Civil Rights evolution of America, including the drug trade. It is a very personal and compelling story that might attract SJSU students because it is an immigrant story, albeit internal immigration. It leads to many discussion opportunities, like the role of the community in self development, the ability of a person to break free of community cultural norms, the challenges of dealing with overt discrimination and covert economic stifling.