I longed for a mother with a scarf on her head and a skin so dark that I never would have to be afraid at night again that the sun would ever burn me" (350). It is this sense of personal shame of having a white mother, caused by the teasing of her peers, that perhaps drives the daughter's longing to travel to Surinam someday to meet her extended family and learn of her black father's roots. "… I began to think about everything, about who my parents were, about my mother, about where my father is from, about what I am, about who were are together" (349).

Her parents are reluctant to allow their daughter to go, but finally give in when it is the summer of the grandmother's eightieth birthday. The father and daughter make the long trip to Surinam. "I knew that we were flying away from...
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