Caucasia (1998) is the first novel written by American author Danzy Senna. It is the coming-of-age story of two multiracial girls, Birdie Lee and her sister Cole, who have a Caucasian mother and an African-American father. The novel is set in Boston, Massachusetts, during the turbulent mid-1970s.
Much of the novel centers on the theme of racial passing. Senna upends the traditional "tragic mulatto" story line by exploring Birdie's desire to be accepted as African-American, although she appears to be Caucasian. Growing up on the run, and fearful her true identity could endanger her mother's life, Birdie seeks to understand who she is and how she fits into the world."Mother Love." Essence 05 2011: 96. She longs for her sister Cole and their father, ultimately running away from home to find them.
Background and historical context Caucasia is set in 1975 Boston, Massachusetts. Violent protests disrupted the city as forced desegregation was implemented in public schools beginning in the 1974 school year. Boston busing desegregation flamed racial tensions, resulting in riots, beatings and violence which persisted for many years.Schwarz, Frederic D. "Busing Comes to Boston." American Heritage 09 1999: 93-5.
Birdie's parents met in January 1963 during the Kennedy administration. They marry and have their first daughter, Colette/Cole in 1964; Birdie is born in 1967. At that time, there were anti-miscegenation laws in many US states. These were not overturned until the 1967 Supreme Court ruling Loving v. Virginia.Loving Decision: 40 Years of Legal Interracial Unions. Washington, D.C.:National Public Radio, 2007.Galie, P. J. "Race, Sex, and the Freedom to Marry: Loving v. Virginia." Choice 52.12 (2015): 2103. Within the context of the novel, Birdie's inclination to try to make herself invisible due to the racial tension she felt in her home positioned her as a "neutered mutation" within Trey Ellis' concept of the "cultural mulatto".
During this period the strategy for social change through peaceful protests that are associated with the Civil Rights Movement were being challenged by new African-American leaders. Malcolm X urged a demand for human rights 'by any means necessary. Stokely Carmichael is credited with the first popular use of term "Black Power" in 1963 at a Civil Rights rally. Following the assassination of Malcolm X in 1965, the Black Panther Party for Self-Defense was created by Bobby Seale and Huey Newton.Van Horne, Winston, A. "THE CONCEPT OF BLACK POWER: Its Continued Relevance." Journal of Black Studies 37.3 (2007): 365–89.
Violence was used as a form of protest by groups such as Weather Underground,Berger, Dan. Outlaws of America: The Weather Underground and the Politics of Solidarity. Oakland, CA: AK Press, 2006. Print notorious for mail bombs and bank robberies, and the Symbionese Liberation Army (SLA), the organization that kidnapped heiress Patty Hearst in 1974.Koehler, Robert. "Guerrilla: The Taking of Patty Hearst (Aka Neverland: The Rise and Fall of the Symbionese Liberation Army)."Variety Review Database 01 2004
Plot summary The novel's narrator is Birdie Lee, a multiracial child who has a white mother and a black father. She and her sister Cole are very close yet differ in appearance. Her sister is described as "cinnamon-skinned, curly-haired", traits associated with African Americans of mixed race. Birdie describes herself as a brown haired, light-skinned girl and her interactions with others indicate she is lighter-skinned than her sister and can pass as white. "...[T]he woman behind the desk took one look at Cole and me and assigned us to different districts. I would be bused to the predominantly African-American school in Dorchester; Cole to South Boston, the Irish section, 'in the interest of dahversetty,' the woman explained..."
The book is written in three parts: Part 1 takes place in 1975 Boston and Roxbury, Massachusetts, when Birdie is eight years old; Part 2 takes place in a small town in New Hampshire six years later when Birdie is 14 years old; Part 3 takes place when Birdie is 14 ½ years old and runs away from her mother to try to find her father and sister.
Part 1: "Negritude for beginners"
It is 1975 and eight-year-old Birdie Lee lives with her family in Roxbury, Massachusetts. She and her older sister, Cole, converse in their room using their made-up language, Elemeno. The pair can hear their Caucasian mother, Sandy and African-American father Deck, arguing downstairs. The confrontation results in Deck moving out for good.
Sandy tells the girls that they will attend a public school, instead of Nkrumah, the private Black Power School in Boston. They are assigned to two different school districts, "'in the interest of dahversetty'". Birdie is sent to a predominantly black school in Dorchester, while Cole is sent to a south Boston Irish school. Sandy dismisses this decision, and the receptionist buses them both to a school in South Boston. An assault on an African-American man by Irish men in the South school district makes the news and the first day of classes are cancelled. The girls are sent to the African-American power school, after all.
At Nkrumah, Birdie is questioned by the other students wanting to know what race she is; they ask if she's Puerto Rican and demand: "What you doin' in this school? You white?" With Cole's sisterly protection, in addition to changing her hair, dress and speech patterns to fit in with the other African-American students, Birdie successfully passes as an African American. Birdie begins to find kinship with her peers. She meets Maria, a schoolgirl who invites her to go steady with a certain boy; she agrees. Through this connection, Birdie becomes close friends with a group of girls who call themselves the Brown Sugars, and her popularity flourishes.
Near the end of the school year, Birdie's parents finally divorce and Deck announces that he is moving to Brazil with his new girlfriend, Carmen, and taking Cole with him. A traumatized Birdie is left with her grieving mother. Sandy fears she is wanted by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) (COINTELPRO) for terrorist activities and the two take off. Birdie becomes Jesse Goldman, a girl with Jewish ancestry. Her mother becomes Sheila Goldman.
Part 2: "From Caucasia with love"
Sandy and Birdie are on the run for four years, in the land of "Caucasia". With fake identities, they become the widow Sheila Goldman and Jewish, white daughter Jesse Goldman. Sheila/Sandy is able to find jobs wherever she and Jesse/Birdie go because she plays up her whiteness and well-educated demeanor. Sandy/Sheila finally decides to settle down in a small town in New Hampshire, where she and Birdie/Jesse rent out a small cottage maintained by Walter and Libby Marsh. Birdie/Jesse meets the Marsh's son, fifteen-year-old Nicholas Marsh, who is home for the summer before heading back to Exeter for school. He makes some romantic advances towards Birdie.
Sandy meets a Jim Campbell at the bar and a relationship begins to form, much to Birdie's displeasure. Birdie begins to realize she wants to be identified as African-American when Nicholas calls her "Poca" — a reference to her skin tone in the light. When summer ends, Nicholas heads back to Exeter and Birdie attends the local public school with the other "townies". Birdie ends up befriending a clique of white girls by imitating their appearances and interests. In this school, Birdie notices Samantha Taper, who is also biracial but, unlike Birdie, does not "pass" as Caucasian and is bullied for it.
Birdie finds a postcard from Dot in Sandy's room and realizes she has been in contact with the family after all. By Christmas, Sandy has told Jim the truth about their true identities, including Birdie's parentage. Birdie feels betrayed and begins to question if the FBI was ever after her mother. By the end of this section, she decides to run away from home to Boston and look for her Aunt Dot, and hopefully find her father and her sister.
Part 3: "Compared to what"
In Boston, Birdie uses the address on the postcard to find Aunt Dot, who now has a daughter, Taj. Aunt Dot notifies Sandy that Birdie has run away to Boston, but when Sandy and Jim come to pick her up, she refuses to leave with them. Birdie reconnects with her first boyfriend from Nkrumah, Ali Parkman, whose father Ronnie was Deck's best friend. She learns from Ronnie that her own father returned from Brazil and settled in California years earlier. Ronnie provides her with Deck's most recent phone number and address. While distraught that Deck has not tried to find her, she commits to going to San Francisco to find Deck and Cole. With financial help from her white, waspish grandmother, Penelope Lodge, Birdie flies to San Francisco.
In San Francisco, she breaks into Deck's home before he arrives. Upon their reunion, Birdie finds out he lives alone and although he professes to be glad to see Birdie again, he is emotionally distant. When the topic of Sandy is broached, he alludes to her flight from the FBI, confirming Birdie's suspicions that Sandy was in little, if any, danger of being pursued by COINTELPRO. He eagerly shares his philosophy about race, a project he had been working on since the Roxbury years, that "... mulattos had historically been the gauge of how poisonous American race relations were," as part of his "Canaries in the Coal Mine" theory. His preoccupation with his theories on race over his concern for her through all the years he was absent from her life causes Birdie to express her anger towards him.
Eventually, Birdie's father takes her to Cole and the sisters reunite after seven years apart. Birdie gives Cole Sandy's number and the three of them decide they will meet during the summer. Birdie decides she will remain in San Francisco with Cole and go to school there. The story ends with Birdie seeing a mixed, African American in a school bus as it drives away from her.
Characters Birdie Lee: The narrator of the novel. Her birth certificate states her name as Baby Lee. Birdie is also called Le Chic by the Nkrumah Brown Sugar clique, and Pocahontas or Poca by Nicholas Marsh. Jesse (Jess) Goldman: The fake Jewish identity Birdie's mother gives her so they can settle in New Hampshire when she is 12 years old. Colette (Cole) Lee: Birdie's older sister. She is named after her mother's favorite author, Colette. For Birdie, Cole is the mirror in which she can see her blackness. Sandy Lodge Lee: Birdie and Cole's mother. She is white, and from an upper crust Boston family whose lineage traces back to Cotton Mather. Sheila Goldman: The fake identity Sandy uses when she and Birdie settle in New Hampshire. Deck Lee: Birdie and Cole's father. Deck is a black intellectual who teaches and writes on race theory. Dot Lee: Deck's younger sister and Birdie's "favorite adult." Carmen: A girlfriend of Deck's after he divorces Sandy. Penelope Lodge: Birdie's white grandmother; Sandy's mother. Walter and Libby Marsh: Couple that rents the cottage to Sandy/Sheila in New Hampshire. Nicholas Marsh: Walter and Libby's son who goes to boarding school, who is a few years older than Birdie/Jesse. Jim: A man Sandy/Sheila meets in New Hampshire and forms a relationship with. Samantha Taper: An adopted mixed-race child with white parent at the New Hampshire school Birdie/Jesse attends
Themes
Identity