50 pages • 1 hour read
Ibi ZoboiAmerican Street
Fiction | Novel | YA | Published in 2017A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Chapters 25-32Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 25 Summary
Fabiola’s friend, Imani, receives a low grade on a paper. Fabiola is concerned and wants to help Imani, just as Imani helped Fabiola when she first arrived in Detroit. Imani shows Fabiola an unwanted gift of flowers and a dress that she has received from Dray. Imani is bothered by Dray’s flirtations, but she doesn’t want Fabiola to tell her cousins about what happened. The girl who has been bullying Fabiola—Tonesha—reappears with her cousin Racquel. Racquel gets into a fight with Fabiola over Kasim. Racquel and Fabiola start punching each other. Tonesha joins in. Fabiola defends herself, continuing to punch Tonesha and Raquel in a rage.
Chapter 26 Summary
The school principal, Ms. Stanley, suspends Fabiola for three days. Fabiola says she would rather use her school tuition money to help her mother. She thinks of Ezili-Danto. Chantal says that Fabiola is now the “Fourth Bee” of their group. Chantal proposes they go to a party in the white neighborhood of Grosse Pointe Park and sell Matant Jo’s pills to start paying off their debt to Q. Fabiola wishes she had never found out about her cousins’ drug dealing.
Matant Jo doesn’t care about the suspension and only wants to know whether Fabiola properly beat up the other girl. Fabiola meets with Kasim at the café where he works, and he reassures her that he has no interest in Racquel. He calls her by her nickname, Fabulous, and he kisses her. Dray pulls up to the café in his car. While Kasim works, Fabiola speaks with Dray. Fabiola asks him for marijuana and pretends to know a Haitian gang in Miami in order to establish a connection with him. She tells him to leave Imani alone. Fabiola tells him she needs money and mentions a party in Grosse Pointe Park where he could sell drugs. She asks him for a cut of the money from the drug sale in exchange for connections with the Haitian gang. Fabiola kisses Dray. He agrees to give her 10 percent. Fabiola asks Dray not to tell Kasim about their deal. Kasim gets into the car. Back at home, Fabiola calls Detective Stevens to share the information about Dray and the party.
Chapter 27 Summary
Fabiola pretends to wake up from a bad dream. She lies to her cousins and says that Papa Legba told her that they shouldn’t go to that party. Donna believes her. Chantal and Pri also agree not to go because there will be police officers there. Fabiola believes that her plan to get Dray arrested at the party—and get Detective Stevens the evidence that she needs—will work. She thanks the lwas and God for helping her.
Chapter 28 Summary
Kasim takes Fabiola to the Motown museum, which documents the history of a record company that championed prominent black musicians and significantly influenced the music industry. They drive around a rich neighborhood and pretend to pick out houses for themselves. They pick up food and drive to Kasim’s house, which is in a somewhat nicer neighborhood than hers. Kasim says his mother works a job that doesn’t pay too much, but he says that it’s “honest money” (279). Fabiola feel guilty about how Matant Jo earns money and how she herself is now earning money through unethical means by working with Detective Stevens. Fabiola and Kasim kiss and have sex. Kasim takes Fabiola home.
“Kasim’s Story” Summary
In the next short story, Kasim says he was made fun of for being a “mama’s boy” when he was younger. He recalls how his father left his mother and moved to Memphis. He talks about being a black kid in the tough streets of Detroit, and he admits to doing dumb things in order to appear tough to his classmates. He recounts how Q acted as a surrogate father and Dray was his only friend. He talks about his love for Fabiola; he considers getting out of the drug business and getting a good, stable job to be with her.
Chapter 29 Summary
Chantal and Fabiola chat about guys and what it’s like to feel ugly. Fabiola expects Kasim to stop by the house, but Kasim texts and says he has work to do. Fabiola worries that Kasim will be going to the party to sell drugs instead of Dray. She worries that Kasim will be arrested instead of Dray. Fabiola runs to Papa Legba, who confirms her suspicions through an ominous song about heartbreak. Fabiola tells her cousins that she provided information about Dray to Detective Stevens in exchange for her mother’s release from immigrant detention. Her cousins are furious at her for talking to the cops and betraying Dray. Chantal drives her sisters and Fabiola to the party. When they arrive, they see several police officers in the area. Fabiola runs past them and sees Detective Stevens. She then sees a white sheet covering the body of Kasim. Detective Stevens informs Fabiola that the police shot Kasim. Chantal takes Fabiola back to the car, where she screams and cries.
Chapter 30 Summary
Fabiola cries fiercely in the car, along with her cousins. Fabiola steps out of the car and confronts Dray in front of their house. Dray says that Fabiola’s actions led to Kasim’s death. Dray says that Kasim was his only family. Dray accuses Fabiola of being a “snitch” for talking to the cops. Dray also accuses Donna, who denies his accusations. Fabiola rushes into the house to pray and seek the help of her spirit guides, whom she has presented with offerings. Pri and Chantal try to protect Fabiola, but Dray kicks Fabiola and beats her up. Dray points a gun at Fabiola’s head. Fabiola closes her eyes. There is darkness and a gunshot.
Chapter 31 Summary
Fabiola remembers the 2010 earthquake that devastated Haiti. The earthquake resulted in the destruction of their house, but Fabiola survived. Dray is shot and killed by Papa Legba, who appears just in time to save the girls. Legba sings a song about people meeting at a crossroads and double-crossing each other. Papa Legba then disappears into thin air. Fabiola runs out of the house to try to find Papa Legba. Her cousin brings her back to the house, where Donna cries over Dray’s body.
“Drayton’s Story” Summary
Drayton (Dray) talks about being killed and reborn in previous lives. He says death allows people to reclaim their bodies and thoughts—to achieve freedom—in a way they cannot do while they are alive. He talks about how his father and grandfather struggled just to survive. Dray looks back on how Q ordered his 10-year-old self to shoot a man. Dray missed the target and killed Haitian Phil instead. Now, he can only wait to be reborn into the tough life of the streets once more.
Chapter 32 Summary
Kasim’s name is all over the news. People march across the city to protest Kasim’s death. They express their solidarity by proclaiming “I am Kasim Anderson.” People are less interested in Dray’s death, and the police do not investigate his death despite the suspicious circumstances surrounding his killing. Fabiola thinks of Kasim constantly and grieves over his senseless death. Fabiola declares herself and her cousins the Four Bees; she says that she is the “Brave” one of the group. Detective Stevens informs Fabiola that her mother will be released from the custody of immigration authorities and will be allowed to live freely in the US. Matant Jo cries as she packs up her belongings, and her daughters comfort her. Matant Jo, her daughters, and Fabiola move out of the house in Detroit. Matant Jo looks at old photos of her family posing in front of the house in Detroit during their early years in America. They leave Detroit to pick up Manman and to begin a new life somewhere else in the US.
Chapters 25-32 Analysis
One of the core ideas that comes out in this final section is that family comes first, even when things get complicated. After Fabiola punches Tonesha and defends Kasim, Fabiola’s cousins fully accept her into the family as the “Fourth Bee.” Fabiola realizes that she could send Detective Stevens information about her cousins’ drug dealing, but then she realizes that she could never do that. “My family. I won’t give them away like that. I would be giving myself away, too, because now, I’m the Fourth Bee” (260). Fabiola—the girl who so forcefully insisted that she wasn’t one of the “Bees”—now fully accepts her role. Her acceptance of the Fourth Bee title is an indication of how much she has changed over the course of this book—or, perhaps Fabiola finally accepts her true nature. Her lies to Kasim and her cousins, her undercover work with the detective, and her manipulation of Dray are all actions that illustrate her willingness to do whatever it takes to protect her family. She is “brave,” as she calls herself.
Death overwhelms these last few chapters. Kasim dies, Dray dies, but Fabiola survives it at all—the earthquake in Haiti, her new life in America, the fight with Dray, and her grief over losing Kasim. She is a survivor, but that survival comes at a great cost. She loses not only her first love—Kasim—but her innocence. Fabiola says as much when she meets Detective Stevens after Kasim’s death, and, for the first time, notices things about Stevens’s appearance and behavior that make her seem untrustworthy. Fabiola’s experiences deepen her resolve to put family above all else, and thus, not to trust in strangers. This loss of innocence is the price Fabiola must pay to free her mother and have a shot at the American Dream.
The American Dream comes at a high metaphorical price not only for Fabiola, but also for her cousins, her aunt, and anyone else suffering from poverty. This heavy weight of suffering is evident when Matant Jo breaks down crying, and Fabiola says, “Her whole body looks as if she is fighting—fighting us, herself, the air around her, this house, this city, this country, maybe” (322). When Matant Jo looks back on photos of her family in front of their house in Detroit during their early years in America, she is thinking back to her initial hopes of achieving the American dream of prosperity—long before that dream became heavy with sorrow.
Fabiola aptly sums up this truth about the American Dream by the end of the book, noting the hardships that many Americans have overcome as an example of their noble endurance: “But then I realize that everyone is climbing their own mountain here in America. They are tall and mighty and live in the hearts and everyday lives of the people” (324). Through all of her hardships, Fabiola has developed the resiliency and strength that immigrants and the poor must have to survive in a country that is either indifferent to their struggles, or punishes them for doing what they have to do—like selling drugs—in order to survive. As Fabiola says in the book’s final line: “I am a mountain” (324). Mountains form by pushing through the Earth’s crust, and they keep rising.
Characters in this book have different belief systems that enable them to survive. Fabiola has her prayers and her lwas, such as Papa Legba, who continues to watch over and guide her through the end of the book with his songs. Her cousin, Pri, has a different belief system: “Myself. My family. Hopes. Dreams. Shit like that” (322). By the end, Fabiola fuses these different belief systems into one: She relies on the strength of her lwas and God, her family, and herself.
This section also examines the meaning of freedom. This concept means different things to different people. In a basic sense, it is the ability to live freely in the US, as Fabiola’s mother wishes to do. For Dray, freedom is “sky, some open space, some room to breathe” (313). It means opportunity to be free from the daily struggle of poverty, which Dray almost achieves, only to be pulled back from it by death. For Matant Jo and her children, freedom is leaving behind their past and seeking a better life outside of Detroit. For Fabiola, it meant becoming a woman and standing on her own two feet without the help of her mother. One thing is clear: there is little freedom to be found for these characters on the streets of Detroit, where people struggle and resort to crime to have a chance at a better life. Even earning money doesn’t make one free, as Dray says: “Even when I’m born again in Detroit, and I’m supposed to be free like the fucking wind, there’s still some shit trying to own my life—money and the bullshit jobs my moms had to work, these shitty streets and this whole fucked-up system” (314).
Moreover, this final section forces the reader to empathize not only with Fabiola’s family and people like Kasim who are trying to do better for themselves, but also with one of the book’s main antagonists: Dray. But after reading Dray’s story, the reader is left to wonder: Is Dray really the antagonist? Or is are the true antagonists the poverty, the behaviors of adults, and the systemic racism that lock children into patterns of violence? This section also alludes to the anger over police killings of black men and women in the US today. When the people of Detroit march in the streets protesting Kasim’s death, this moment echoes the real-life protests in the black community over police brutality.
The five senses—touch, smell, taste, feel, and sight—continue to play an important role in this section, along with the ever present motif of color and literary devices like metaphors. Fabiola describes the smell of weed in Dray’s car, and that smell associates Dray with the sale of drugs. Likewise, Fabiola associates Detective Stevens with the smell of “coffee and cigarettes” (319). Throughout book, Fabiola repeatedly refers to the unforgiving, cold air of Detroit. Once the bloodshed surrounding Kasim and Dray’s deaths is over, the family’s chance for a fresh start is symbolized in their white clothes and in the fresh, cold snow that falls around them.
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By Ibi Zoboi
