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"I was born an Orthodox Jew on April 1, 1921, April Fool’s Day, in Poland. I don’t remember the name of the town where I was born, but I do remember my Jewish name: Ruchel Dwarja Zylska. My parents got rid of that name when we came to America and changed it to Rachel Deborah Shilsky, and I got rid of that name when I was nineteen and never used it again after I left Virginia for good in 1941". (Ruth McBride)

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Her family had moved from Poland just as WWII was starting. She had moved to America and was being battered by those around her for being Jewish. This had continued until she was around 19 years old. In which she leaves her family and drops her Jewish name and Judaism as a whole.

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"I perceived to be imminent danger from blacks and whites who disliked her for being a white person in a black world. " (James McBride)

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What Occurs While Finding Self Belonging

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What Occurs While Finding Self Belonging

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James being a Mixed Race person of color, struggles with fitting in with his community. He doesn't fit in at home, his neighborhood, nor his mainly white school. Throughout the book he can't figure out how race relations should occur. As he felt he was white but was seen as a person of color. This being the main conflict in the story, and it gives him a sort of identity crisis. Going to his mother for advice but to basically no-avail.

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"Yet Mommy refused to acknowledge her whiteness. Why she did so was not clear, but even my teachers seemed to know she was white and I wasn’t. On open school nights, the question most often asked by my schoolteachers was: “Is James adopted?” which always prompted an outraged response from Mommy." (James McBride)

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Ruth McBride's children are of mixed race, she gets threats towards her family from people in her community. She believes that race should not be seen nor affect community. Throughout the book, armed with this thinking, Ruth McBride spreads positivity and the philosophy that we are all human and should co-exist. No matter the skin color.

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"One afternoon on the way home from church I asked her whether God was black or white.
A deep sigh. “Oh boy…God’s not black. He’s not white. He’s a spirit.”
“Does he like black or white people better?”
“He loves all people. He’s a spirit.”
“What’s a spirit?”
“A spirit’s a spirit.”
“What color is God’s spirit?”
“It doesn’t have a color,” she said. “God is the color of water. Water doesn’t have a color.”"

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Ruth McBride asks his mother about Religion and that if god prefers black or white people more. This makes sense as he has interactions with the Ku Klux Klan (KKK) throughout the story with a feeling of ever looming doom around him. By asking this it gives the reader further insight into his struggles with his understanding of Racism in Religion, just another piece to a child's understanding to the world. His mother tries to spread equality through her explanation further showing us she chose to reform as a Christian, as believing in god gives her a sense of equality among the races.

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"Nobody liked me. That’s how I felt as a child. I know what it feels like when people laughing at you walking down the street, or snicker when they hear you speaking Yiddish, or just look at you with hate in their eyes." (Ruth McBride)

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The Long Lasting Effects of Anti-Semitism 

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The Long Lasting Effects of Anti-Semitism 

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Anti-Semitism is still very real. It was even worse back then. Being in the South made things much worse of course. From the way the author writes the story we can see how that constant feeling of being left out and judged actually had formed the way Ruth McBride had thought. Then passing that same thinking to her children. She moved to the Bronx in which she would have children with a black man and would be terrorized from both races. Living out her days teaching her children equality before James McBride leaves to go fight for equal rights for all.