American Street

“We leave the airport. It feels like I’m leaving part of me behind—a leg, an arm. My whole heart.” 

Fabiola is close to her mother. Leaving her mother behind and departing from the airport hurts Fabiola, because this is the first time that mother and daughter have ever been separated for an extended period. It is the painful beginning of Fabiola’s journey to independence.

“As I follow her, I stuff the slice of cheese into my mouth, and I can’t believe this is the very first thing I eat in America. It tastes like a mix of glue, chalk and salt.” 

Fabiola’s cousins and aunt have prepared no welcome meal for her, so she eats the first thing she can find: a slice of American cheese. The terrible taste of the cheese represents the bitter aftertaste of leaving her mother behind and the rude welcome that Fabiola has received since coming to America.

“Three Bees. The biggest, baddest bitches from the west side. Nobody, I mean, nobody, fucks with us.” 

The Three Bees represent the three sisters: Chantal, Pri, and Donna. Here, Pri is describing how they each look out for each other and have acquired a reputation for being like royalty—queen bees—so no one bothers them. 

“He thought he was buying American Joy.”

Matant Jo tells the story of her dead husband, Phillip. Phillip purchased the house at the corner of American Street and Joy Road because he thought it symbolized “American Joy,” or the prosperity promised in the traditional “American Dream” narrative. The false promise of “American Joy” casts a shadow over the entire novel.

“Manman told me not to judge people by their clothes but by their shoes. A wise person will only be left with threads, but their shoes should be made for endless walking in search of a better life.” 

Fabiola is observing Detective Stevens’s solid leather boots. Fabiola judges people based on first impressions, namely their appearances and manner of dress. Fabiola decides to trust the detective because she appears smart, based on her footwear. Fabiola will later come to regret this decision. 

“I would fuck a book before I fuck some dude who doesn’t respect me. I’d fuck a degree, a paycheck, and a damn career!” 

Chantal has always been the most practical of her sisters. She doesn’t care about spending money on fancy clothes or other frivolous items, but she cares more about having a good degree and a career so she can build a stable and legal financial future, which her family has lacked her entire life. 

“Just because everybody says I’m pretty and I wear nice clothes, it doesn’t mean I’m a ho. But that reputation sticks to you like another layer of skin.” 

Here, Donna is upset about how society cruelly shames girls and young women for enjoying feminine clothes that shows off their bodies. This teasing was one of the reasons that the sisters decided to change their reputation and become the Three Bees. 

“When we drive back to American Street, all the lights look brighter, maybe there are more stars in the sky, and this city is more beautiful than it has ever been.” 

When Fabiola first arrives in Detroit, she finds the city to be dull and cold. But as she falls in love with Kasim, Fabiola starts to fall in love with Detroit, which suddenly appears like a bright, magical place.

“My whole body sinks onto her bed, still with her comb in my hand and with the scent of cigarette smoke, alcohol, sweat, pain and grief on the tips of my fingers.” 

Fabiola often identifies someone based on scent. Here, we get a glimpse into Matant Jo’s sad life, which is filled with the smells of various vices she uses to numb the pain of her condition and her hard life. 

“He might be Baron Samedi, guardian of the cemetery, but he is digging his own grave, and all I have to do is push him in.” 

Fabiola describes Dray here as the embodiment of Baron Samedi—the spirit guide who represents the cemetery and everything associated with it, including death. Due to Dray’s cruel behavior toward Donna, Fabiola is more determined than ever to find the evidence that will put him in jail. 

“Money’s just room to breathe, that’s all.” 

Money functions as a symbol of various aspirations in this book, including freedom and the promise of the American Dream. Here, however, Chantal says that there is a limit to what money can buy. Money can keep us from starving for food on a daily basis, but it won’t necessarily make us happy or remove all the challenges in our lives.  

“There was work here in Detroit—cars, houses, factories, highways. Here was the American dream built brick by brick, screw by screw, concrete over dirt.” 

Detroit once represented the hub of American manufacturing, particularly in the automotive industry. Henry Ford built a car empire that Americans thought would last forever. As manufacturing was exported overseas, the economy dried up in Detroit, leaving behind few jobs and empty homes after residents fled the city. This is when Fabiola comes to the city.

“You have to come to this side because this new family of mine is both familiar and strange—just like how I am American by birth and Haitian by blood, bones and tears. Familiar and strange.” 

Fabiola is thinking of her mother and praying for her to come home because Fabiola feels both alone and comforted by her new family—her cousins and aunt—and doesn’t quite know how to make sense of these feelings. 

“If Dray and Donna’s love is like a tornado—wild, dangerous and unpredictable—then this thing between me and Kasim is like the ocean—deep, deep, and as wide as the endless earth.”

Fabiola uses similes of natural disaster and nature to compare her love—which is strong and gentle—to Donna and Dray’s love—which is turbulent and disastrous for everyone around them.

“Maybe I’m fighting the win, this place called Detroit, my cousins and their walls, the prison that keeps my mother, my broken home country floating in the middle of a sinking sea. Then the hot red wraps its fiery hands around my throat and I can’t breathe.” 

In this scene, Fabiola is defending herself against the blows of Raquel and Tonesha, who are upset that she is dating Kasim. But Fabiola’s anger extends beyond these two girls. She is upset at her circumstances and her inability to change her situation, so this fight is the perfect opportunity for her suppressed anger to surface in the form of red rage.

“That’s what we say in Haiti. Nou led, men nou la. We are ugly, but we are here.” 

Chantal says that she is not very pretty and grows upset when Fabiola tries to reassure her. Fabiola responds with this Haitian idiom. This quote can be read as being about more than just exterior beauty: We might be flawed or imperfect or ugly beings, but we are here, and that’s the only thing that matters.

“Kasim is the earthquake and he has shattered my heart into a million little pieces.” 

Fabiola has just discovered Kasim’s dead body. Using the metaphor of natural disaster, Fabiola likens Kasim’s impact on her, and the devastation of losing him, to an earthquake. 

“I am not afraid of dying. Death has always walked close—an earthquake, a hurricane, a disease, a thief and his knife. If Death owns half of my aunt, then I will sell my whole self to it.” 

Fabiola confronts Dray, who is upset over Kasim’s death. He presses a gun to Fabiola’s head. Fabiola says here that she has faced death many times before, and that she will give herself to it fully, if this is the price she must pay for her actions.

“Crossroads, cross paths / Double-cross and cross-examine / Cross a bridge across my mind.” 

Bad Leg/Papa Legba’s riddles are a recurring motif throughout the book. He represents the guardian of the crossroads and has caused Fabiola to betray or “double-cross” and “cross-examine” the people around her. Dray’s death is the final crossroads—the final hurdle—that Fabiola must pass before bringing her mother home. Now that Dray is gone, Papa Legba sings one final time for Fabiola. 

“If my pops and his pops before him been fighting all their lives to just fucking breathe, then what there’s for a little nigga to contemplate when somebody puts a gun in his hands?” 

This story is unique in that we hear directly from the book’s central villain: Dray. This passage registers empathy in the reader for Dray, as we realize that he is trapped in a generational cycle of violence passed down from father to son.

“I am brave. No one has to tell me this. I know it for myself.” 

Here, Fabiola’s character development comes full circle. Before, she hesitated to associate herself with the Three Bees and struggled to be close to her new family members. She was afraid to speak up around people like Dray. But now, she realizes the importance of family and standing up for loved ones, no matter the cost. She has become brave—the Fourth Bee.

“We have to become everything that we want. Consume it. Like our lwas.” 

Earlier in the book, Fabiola echoes the sentiment that it is not enough to pray to the lwas, but that you must also become them. So, to take vengeance on someone as the lwas Ezili-Danto does, you must become vengeful yourself. Fabiola stresses the importance of seizing what we want in life with all our strength. 

“What a life, eh. This is my whole life.” 

Here, Matant Jo looks back on her adult life, which is in the walls of the house around her at 8800 American Street. Now that she has to leave it all behind and start anew, Matant Jo breaks down crying over all the hopes and sorrows that she must leave behind, too.