's short story
"" features a character named Dee who prefers to be referred to as Wangero when she
comes to visit her mother after a long absence from home. Dee has become suddenly interested in
her family's heritage, though she was once completely embarrassed by them. At one point, her
mother recalls, Dee wrote to her and said that she will "manage" to come and see Dee's
mother and sister, but that "she will never bring her friends." Evidently, she would
be too humiliated. Mrs. Johnson also describes how much Dee "had hated" their old
house, the one that burned down long ago, and so she assumes Dee will hate this house as well
because "Dee wanted nice things." Mrs. Johnson describes how quickly Dee could focus
her "faultfinding power" on things, people, or whatever happened to displease
her.
In the story's present, however, acceptance for one's black history and
culture has become fashionable, and Dee is suddenly eager to visit and collect her family's
artifacts with which she plans to "do something artistic" when she returns home. When
she arrives, Dee makes sure to take a number of photographs of her mother and Maggie, her
sister, sitting in front of the house, and when the cow comes around the front, she makes sure
to get the cow, too. Now she seems to take some pride in her family's humble home, and she is so
eager to have proof of it that she doesn't even greet her mother until
after she's taken her pictures. She seems to believe that her humble
origins confer upon her some kind of cultural authenticity that she now
desires.
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