Summary
In the story "Mekonnen aka Mack aka Huey Freakin' Newton," Mekonnen, the protagonist and narrator, has recently moved to America from Ethiopia and settled in Brooklyn in 1989. He struggles with his sense of racial identity, as he is unsure if he is Black in the same way as his classmates. He asks his father if they are African American and his father says that they are "Africans in America." Mekonnen becomes intrigued by a group of kids in his neighborhood who call themselves the African American All-Stars.
The narrator says that the All-Stars know a great deal about Black history and art. He frequently sees them dancing and is impressed and drawn in by the skill and expressiveness of their choreography. Mekonnen tries to join their group and is eventually accepted. He spends more and more time with them, educating himself about Black historical figures like Malcolm X while trying to keep up his schoolwork. He becomes good friends with the group's leader, Kareem.
One day, Kareem makes offensive comments about some Korean store owners, saying that they are always rude to him and taking opportunities away from people who have lived here for a longer period of time. Mekonnen is offended by this. Someone points out that Mekonnen is also an immigrant and Kareem begins to fight with him but stops. The narrator shares the story of a time when a store owner wouldn't let him come inside because of his race. Kareem listens intently and the two make up. Kareem shows him some new dance steps. Two years later, in 1991, another store owner is rude to Mekonnen's father. Filled with rage at his prejudice, Mekonnen does an impassioned dance in front of the store owner and his father.
"The Thief's Tale" is about a surprising encounter between an elderly Ethiopian man and a thief. The man is wandering around Prospect Park late at night and gets lost. The park is empty and dark. The elderly man feels helpless and pathetic for getting lost. Another man comes along and tries to speak to the elderly man. The elderly man speaks almost no English and cannot understand most of what the other man says except for "the'' and "have." The man tries again to ask for something but fails to communicate with the elderly man.
The man then reveals himself to be a thief, as he takes out a knife and points to his wallet, showing that he is telling the man to give him his wallet. The elderly man still does not understand and the thief takes pity on him. The thief allows the elderly man to use a pay phone to call his daughter. They sit and talk in their respective languages while playing cards. The thief says that he used to be married but he gambled away all of his money. The old man says he once fought off a mugger and also managed to steal from someone with just menacing threats. The elderly man's daughter arrives and takes him home. He feels satisfaction at having outsmarted the mugger.
The story "Kind Stranger" takes place in Addis Ababa. The narrator of the story is on his way to visit his relatives when he encounters a strange man in the street. The narrator trips and falls over in the street and the stranger helps him up. The stranger then begins to tell him a long story. He talks about a very rainy night in which he was standing on the street and encountered a woman named Marta who he had not seen in years, since she had been arrested during the Derg. The man says he asked her to dinner. He also adds that his name is Gedeyon. Gedeyon asks the woman if she remembers him, saying that they went to university together and that he had asked her to get dinner at one point but she made fun of his shoes. He saved up to buy new shoes and asked her out again and she said no again.
He then adds that he gave her name to the authorities during the Derg. He tells the narrator that he was tortured during the Derg. Marta doesn't answer him, seeming to not hear what he said, and eventually she moves down the street. He goes up to her again and they begin talking, though she still does not seem to recognize him. She says she was imprisoned during the Derg and suffered greatly at first but eventually made peace with it. Marta trips and falls in the street and gets her ankle stuck in a gutter. She asks for Gedeyon's help, calling him a kind stranger, and Gedeyon realizes she doesn't remember him and never will. He does not help her up and she is killed when a car hits her.
Analysis
Immigration is a significant theme in Mekonnen's story, as he struggles to adjust to life in America. He is confused about his identity, as he looks like other Black kids in his school but has recently immigrated to the U.S. and has no sense of Black American history. A significant part of Mekonnen's growth as a character comes from his learning about important figures like Maya Angelou and Langston Hughes, as they give him a way to feel pride in his racial background. This pride comes out most prominently in the moments towards the end of the story, when he learns new dance steps from Kareem and, later, when he angrily dances in front of a store owner who insulted his father. In these moments he is able to express joy and feel a sense of pride in his culture. This is a marked contrast with the fear and confusion he feels at the beginning of the story. Even if he faces challenges, Mekonnen, at the end of the story, feels that he has found where he belongs, marking his transition out of the early stages of uncomfortable adjustment.
Racism is also a major theme in Mekonnen's story, as he is repeatedly confronted with racist behavior. He talks about all of the tensions in 1980s Brooklyn, noting that Black people were frequently harassed by the police and heckled with slurs in the street. Later in the story, he mentions an instance in which a store owner made him wait outside while his friend bought the items he wanted, as she didn't want to be alone with him. He also describes an instance in which another store owner told his father that they didn't take food stamps, despite the fact that he was about to pay with cash. The story shows the prevalence of this racist behavior by focusing on how it occurs at both the historical and personal level. He also effectively demonstrates how dehumanizing these moments felt, as he and his father were reduced, in those moments, to offensive stereotypes by the people mistreating them.
Language is an important part of the story "The Thief's Tale." The story describes an old man getting lost in Prospect Park late at night. He comes across another man who attempts to rob him but is unable to, because the elderly man cannot understand what the thief is saying. The thief takes pity on him and lets him call his daughter to pick him up. The thief and the old man sit and play cards together and talk about their lives in their respective languages. At the end of the story, it becomes apparent that the old man feels clever for having narrowly avoided being robbed by virtue of not speaking English. The story shows how both men are still able to share a human moment despite not speaking the same language, as they recount pivotal and dramatic parts of their lives with each other. At the same time, it also suggests that the outcome of the encounter is actually made better by the old man's inability to speak English, as he managed not to get mugged by drawing on the thief's sympathy.
Political oppression plays a disturbing role in "Kind Stranger." The story describes an encounter between an unnamed narrator and a stranger, Gedeyon, who helps him up after he falls in the street. Gedeyon begins to tell the narrator about how he once knew a woman named Marta, who rejected him when they were students and made fun of his shoes. He says that he ran into her after many years and that he had, under the duress of torture, given her name to the authorities during the Derg. This terrible moment in the story highlights how small personal conflicts and insults can have catastrophic weight under a dangerous political climate. Feeling slighted by the memory of Marta's rejection, he causes her to be imprisoned for many years, a decision whose consequences he appears haunted by.
These stories in this section highlight characters experiencing harsh conflict with their surroundings. Mekonnen feels unable to fit in at school or in the world, as he does not feel connected to African American culture but still experiences constant anti-Black racism. Gedeyon is romantically rejected as a student for not being wealthy and then is captured by the Derg. These darker stories delve into how characters are directly affected by their historical moment. Gedeyon cannot escape the brutality of the Derg in much the same way that Mekonnen cannot avoid the prejudiced gaze of shop owners and bullies.
