Gender and Sexuality
A key theme of the novel is gender and sexuality, which play a large role in Sasha's life. Sasha's exploration of gender and self-expression is also a likely catalyst for Richard's attack, for which they are targeted because they are wearing a skirt. Richard admits during interrogation that he does not like gay people, and he is not particularly informed about transgender identity, so he assumes that Sasha is gay, because from Richard's perspective, Sasha is a teen boy wearing a skirt. Sasha wears a skirt with a masculine vest or shirt because they do not identify as either male or female. This misunderstanding on Richard's part forms one of the main points of the book, which advocates passionately for understanding of the LBGTQ community. The book also argues that gender and sexuality are both different terms and different issues entirely.
Genderqueer, as Sasha explains it, means that a person is questioning their identity and does not know whether they identify as male or female. Sasha does not really identify with either; on the other hand, Sasha's friend Andrew, who was born a girl, always knew that he was not a girl. Nemo, on the other hand, identifies as gender fluid, which means that at any time they may identify with either gender. Each of these genders is different; the book shows that many people think like Richard, and assume all three characters to be gay.
Sexuality is different from gender, and relates to the category of people one feels physically attracted to. Sasha does not feel sexual attraction but is still interested in sex, unlike Nemo, who is asexual and does not have sexual relationships with anyone, regardless of gender. As a female, Andrew was attracted to men, and as Andrew, still feels this attraction. Andrew's sexuality has never changed, although his gender has.
Discrimination
Sasha experiences the most obvious instance of discrimination in the book, being set on fire because of their genderqueer identity. Richard also experiences discrimination as his narrative is informed by the fact that he is a black teen from East Oakland with a criminal record. In both cases, this discrimination is the result of ignorance; Richard is ignorant and does not understand gender identity. The justice system is ignorant in that it assumes the only way to punish Richard is with incarceration, where a kid from the "right" side of town might not have been punished in quite the same way.
The book also aims to promote a non-discriminatory kind of justice, called restorative justice, in which both the victim and the perpetrator try to reconcile and are given a chance to try to find a solution through remorse and contrition that will help both of them heal.
Most of the characters in the book experience some form of discrimination. Karl is beaten up while out for a run because his attackers assume he is gay. Debbie recalls being sent home from school for uniform violations, which she also recalls never happened to the boys in her class, showing that she was discriminated against because of her gender, and that unrealistic social expectations are placed far more on girls than on boys.
Adult versus Adolescent Crimes
Richard is sixteen, but when he sets fire to Sasha's skirt, he finds himself charged as an adult, primarily because he is considered to have committed a hate crime. In California, prosecutors have the power to decide to charge under-age offenders as adults in violent crimes. He is treated as an adult, even though his attorney contends that the teenage brain does not operate at the same level as the adult brain and therefore his client, a teen, should not be charged as if he were an adult.
Richard exhibits signs of what's called "hot cognition," which means that as an adolescent he is given to sudden impulse that he does not have the patience or the brain-development to control. This is another reason his attorney contends that he should be charged as a juvenile. He is also easily influenced by others, since he was given the lighter by his friend, Jamal, and sets fire to Sasha's skirt as a result of Jamal's urging.
Slater devotes a large chunk of the book to discussing the history of juvenile justice in the US, often quoting Barry Feld, an expert in juvenile law at the University of Minnesota, who insists that “You cannot tell when you’re looking at a sixteen-year-old whether they are irredeemably depraved" (174). This statement contradicts a lot of the conservative theories that came out of the '80s and '90s, like the "super-predator" theory championed by political scientist John J. Dilulio Jr., which claimed “A super-predator is a young juvenile criminal who is so impulsive, so remorseless, that he can kill, rape, maim without giving it a second thought" (162).
Slater questions the benefits of mass incarceration of adolescents, suggesting that rehabilitation would surely yield more positive results for individuals and their communities.
Forgiveness
Much of the book deals with the theme of forgiveness and the degree to which certain offenses deserve to be forgiven. Forgiveness is a broad term; Sasha and her parents want justice rather than vengeance for Richard's crimes, and so they question whether incarceration is the most effective punishment. They would rather focus on accountability and forgiveness.
Richard displays remorse for his actions and writes heartfelt letters of apology to Sasha, who forgives him when he takes full responsibility for his actions and expresses a willingness to take any punishment that is given to him because he feels he deserves it. Karl, Sasha's father, is also quick to forgive Richard. He believes that restorative justice, and a situation in which an uninformed young man becomes educated, and is able to achieve a level of positive introspection, is more likely to produce an ally to the LGBTQ community. In this way, Karl's forgiveness is also pragmatic.
Debbie is the slowest to forgive Richard, because although she does not want Richard to be tried and punished as an adult, she also feels uncomfortable with being a judge of his actions, which is what would happen if restorative justice were to be utilized in his case. In this way, the author shows that there are different kinds of forgiveness with different strengths and also different speeds at which a person is able to come to a place of forgiveness.
Binaries
A major theme in The 57 Bus is that of binaries, both in the context of identity and criminal justice. Through the story of Sasha's journey towards figuring out the terms they feel most comfortable identifying themselves with, and the story of Andrew's gender transition, Slater demonstrates how limiting socially constructed binaries can be to those who fall somewhere else on the gender spectrum. Yet, Slater also shows how binaries are deeply integrated into society. For example, until recently, all bathrooms were either for men or women. Government forms only offer two options when it comes to gender: M or F. Forms also often conflate gender and sex as the same thing.
The text shows how binaries can not only be hurtful, but damaging. They often lead to oversimplification of a situation. Part 4 begins with a section titled "BINARY," which challenges the false premise that "there are two kinds of people in the world" (215). Among the binaries listed are "Victims and Villains," "Cruel and Kind" and "Guilty and Innocent" (215). But the text demonstrates the falsehood of these black and white designations. For example, Slater shows instances of Richard's kindness and his aptitude for working with young kids in the counselor's office at his school. However, we know this same person is capable of cruelty, which is evident when he lights the hem of Sasha's skirt on fire.
Community
One of the main themes Slater explores in The 57 Bus is that of community. She describes Oakland in the opening sections of the book as "a city of more than 400,000 people, but it can still feel like a small town" (6). She describes the diversity of the city, where no one group is the majority, and people of all different racial, ethnic, nation, and gender identities live, work, and raise families.
But Oakland is also "a city of stark contrasts." She writes that "in 2013, the year Sasha was burned, Oakland ranked seventh among American cities in income inequality—just below New York. Its per capita rate of violent crime made it the second most dangerous city in America, but its citizens still paid some of the highest rents in the country" (7). The route of the 57 bus travels through neighborhoods of every socioeconomic makeup, which is how Sasha, from a middle-class section of Oakland, and Richard, from a lower-income neighborhood in East Oakland, ended up on the same bus home.
A sense of community is also demonstrated in response to the attack on Sasha. Sasha saw support from all corners of the globe, and the LGBTQ+ community demonstrated its cohesivness across national boundaries, sending Sasha letters and gifts from all corners of the world. On a smaller scale, Maybeck and Oakland High schools came together in solidarity with Sasha, playing basketball games in their honor and starting a No H8 campaign to raise money for their medical costs.
Action/Advocacy
As Sasha becomes more comfortable with their own gender identity, they push for national recognition of people who identify outside of the gender binary. In high school, before the attack, Sasha started a petition on the We the People website urging the White House to recognize nonbinary gender. The initial petition received over 27,000 signatures, which "would have been enough to trigger an official response from the White House were it not for a petition circulated a couple of months earlier asking the White House to build a Death Star like the one in the movie Star Wars" that received 34,000 signatures (49). But Sasha was not disheartened by the lack of response from the White House; they were instead amazed and excited that so many people signed their petition.
A year later, a petition with very similar wording to Sasha's requesting the same recognition was submitted on We the People's website and went viral through several online news sources. The second petition received over 100,000 signatures and earned a response from the White House that didn't necessarily guarantee change, but recognized the importance of the issue. Since that petition, there have been strong efforts to add additional options to legal forms for gender designation. Sasha's advocacy works on a large, national scale, but also on a smaller, local scale, as demonstrated by her father Karl's decision to stop organizing his kindergarten line ups by gender, and instead doing it by alphabetical order of his students' last names.
