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 1-6Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 1 Summary
We are introduced to Fabiola, the book’s first-person narrator. Fabiola is a teenager from Haiti who is trying to immigrate to the United States from Haiti with her mother, whom she calls “Manman” in Haitian Creole. Because Fabiola was born in the US, she is allowed to enter the country. Manman, however, is a citizen of Haiti, and even though she has a temporary visa, the US immigration officials suspect—correctly—that Fabiola’s mother is planning to stay in the country permanently. The immigration officers detain Manman in New York. Fabiola unwillingly leaves her mother in New York and takes another connecting flight to Detroit. She asks a gate attendant at the airport about her mother, but the woman merely tells Fabiola to pick up her luggage from baggage claim. Fabiola exits the airport and encounters the cold weather of Detroit. She prays and thinks of her mother.
Chapter 2 Summary
Fabiola waits for her cousins to pick her up, but it has been many years since she has seen them, and she does not recognize them. Her cousins Chantal, Princess (who goes by “Pri”), and Primadonna (who goes by “Donna”) arrive at the airport. Pri and Donna are twins. Fabiola informs Chantal about her mother’s detention in New York. Chantal finds out from a Delta Air Lines employee that immigration officials plan to deport Manman back to Haiti. Chantal reassures Fabiola, stating that Chantal’s mother will find a way to help Manman. Fabiola reluctantly gets in the car with her cousins, and they drive her to their house in Detroit.
Chapter 3 Summary
Chantal drives the car through the dark streets of Detroit, and Fabiola tries to spot American mansions like the ones she’s seen on TV. They pull up in front of small house that is definitely not a mansion. This is where her cousins live with their mother—Fabiola’s aunt, whom Fabiola calls Matant Jo. Fabiola and Matant Jo hug. Matant Jo tells Fabiola to speak in English, not Creole. Matant Jo has suffered a stroke; her face is partly paralyzed, and she walks using a cane. Matant Jo says that she will try to help Fabiola’s mother stay in the US. We learn that Matant Jo is disappointed that Chantal—who is smart and earned good grades in high school—attends a nearby community college instead of a fancier school; she has chosen to live at home to look after her family.
Matant Jo tells Fabiola to make herself at home and leaves her alone in the kitchen. Fabiola is startled by the relatively inhospitable welcome that she has received in America. Chantal shows Fabiola the bedroom the two of them will share. Donna puts on makeup and goes out driving with her boyfriend. Fabiola wakes up in the middle of the night from hunger. She thinks of her friends back home in Haiti. Fabiola hears a neighbor known as Bad Leg—who is nicknamed as such because one of his legs does not work—singing a song that starts with “Welcome to the D.” “D” stands for Detroit. Donna’s boyfriend, Dray, starts beating up Bad Leg. Dray’s friend stops him from beating Bad Leg any further. Donna enters the house, clearly drunk. Fabiola lights a candle and performs a Haitian voodoo ritual to try to connect with her mother through spirit guides (lwas in Creole). Fabiola wonders if she and her mother should go back to Haiti.
The end of Chapter 3 consists of a long message from Fabiola to her mother, written as a kind of letter or diary entry. Fabiola discusses Manman’s teachings about the lwas, or the Haitian spirit guides of voodoo, which Fabiola practices now, even though Manman is not here. Fabiola says she has visions of Manman lying on an uncomfortable bunk bed and speaking “broken French” to African immigrants who are detained. Fabiola wishes her mother would join her in Detroit so they could speak Creole together.
Chapter 4 Summary
Chapter 4 begins with Chantal asking Fabiola about the voodoo she practices. Fabiola says she is praying to Papa Legba, who is the lwas of the crossroads; he opens metaphorical doors and gates, allowing people to cross from one side of a situation to another. Fabiola hopes he will bring her mother home. Fabiola wishes to go to New Jersey, but Chantal says it’s too far away. Fabiola gets dressed for school. Chantal gets upset at Donna for wearing revealing clothing and for wasting money on expensive clothes. Fabiola eats breakfast alone. She looks out the window and takes in her neighborhood in Detroit. She sees signposts indicating that Matant Jo’s house is at the corner of American Street and Joy Road.
Pri asks Fabiola to comb her hair into six tight braids; Donna says that Pri is trying to look like a boy. Fabiola asks her cousins about Matant Jo’s work, but they get defensive, so Fabiola stops asking questions. Fabiola is put off by Pri’s excessive cursing. Fabiola shares memories of phone conversations she and Pri had when they were children, but Pri says that they are grown up now. A news report comes on television about a white girl who went to the same school that Chantal attended. The white girl died after overdosing on a bad batch of drugs. Chantal tells Fabiola to ignore the news report. The sisters and Fabiola get in the car and make casual jokes to each other. Pri tells her cousin her story.
“Princess’s Story” Summary
In a separate section before the start of Chapter 5, a short story narrated what Pri tells Fabiola. Pri talks about the origins of her name and her sister Primadonna’s name. Pri’s mother gave the twins names echoing royalty because she thought they would become rich off the economic opportunity in America. That all changed after her father died. Nonetheless, Pri’s mother found a way to support her children and give them the luxuries they desired, such as a flat-screen TV. Pri shares her feelings on how her classmates assumed xenophobic stereotypes about her family for being Haitian and speaking Creole. She mentions Chantal’s scholarship to a private high school. She talks about beating up other girls who were jealous of her twin sister, Donna. Pri describes herself as the “brawn”—the physically strong one of the three sisters—Chantal as the “brains,” and Donna as the “beauty” (46).
Chapter 5 Summary
It starts snowing. Chantal brings Fabiola to the local Catholic high school. Fabiola comments on her school uniform being a bit long and worries that it seems too modest. Ms. Stanley, the school principal, greets them. She is friendly with Chantal, as Chantal studied there before getting a scholarship to private school. Ms. Stanley doesn’t know that Chantal has chosen to study at community college instead of attending a well-known university. Chantal pays for Fabiola’s tuition money and says that her aunt will drop off Fabiola’s necessary paperwork, although Chantal appears to be lying about the paperwork. Chantal tells Fabiola that Matant Jo lends money to people and makes money off the interest on the loans. Chantal says that you have to pay for a good school in Detroit.
Fabiola’s classmate Imani greets her. As Imani and Fabiola leave class, Imani mentions that Fabiola is the cousin of the Three Bees, which makes her the “Fourth Bee.” Imani says that the Three Bees are akin to royalty in this school; the Bees have a reputation of defending each other fiercely, so no one dares to bother them. Imani also shares the false gossip she has heard about Matant Jo practicing voodoo. Fabiola is uncomfortable with the attention she receives from other students due to her cousins’ reputation. When they get home, Fabiola notices how lonely the house seems. No one is cooking, despite the house having a nice kitchen. Fabiola speaks to Matant Jo about her mother. Matant Jo says that there is nothing she can do, even though she badly wishes to see her sister. She asks Fabiola to bring a bible from her drawer, and the two of them sit together for a while as Matant Jo shares her story.
“Matant Jo’s Story” Summary
This short section takes the form of a short story that Matant Jo narrates to Fabiola. Matant Jo talks about her dead husband, Phillip, and how he bought the house at the corner of American Street and Joy Road because he thought it represented “American Joy.” Phillip sent for his wife and child—Chantal—to join him in Detroit, where Phillip could work with cars, which he loved. Matant Jo was happy then, but after her husband died, she says that a hole opened in her heart, and it has since spread to the rest of her body. Matant Jo has given up on seeing her sister, and she wonders if Fabiola can “fill this hole with a little bit of love” before she dies (58).
Chapter 6 Summary
Fabiola receives a few hundred dollars in cash from Matant Jo for her living expenses. After school, Fabiola waits for her cousins to pick her pick as they finish up some errands. Fabiola comments on how the kids at school all know her by reputation. “I’m the Three Bees’ cousin, as they say” (60). She goes to the local CVS pharmacy to purchase some items. She bumps into a woman who asks her if she goes to the nearby Catholic high school. Fabiola notices that the woman appears trustworthy but notes that she is a stranger. Fabiola purchases her items and leaves, meeting up with her cousins. As they leave school, she notices the woman staring at her.
Chapters 1-6 Analysis
Although Fabiola was born in the US, she has spent nearly her entire life in Haiti. Therefore, when she first arrives in the US as a new immigrant, she immediately notices the differences between Detroit and Haiti. The first thing that becomes apparent to Fabiola is the bitter cold of Detroit, which she says “threatens to swallow me whole” (7). This cold is also symbolic of the less-than-warm welcome Fabiola has received in America, from her mother’s deportation order to her cousins’ and aunt’s lack of hospitality. She contrasts the colors of her old home in Haiti with the colors of her new home, commenting on the harsh, gray landscape of Detroit compared to the bright colors of the houses and landscape in Haiti. She seems to find Detroit’s lack of vibrant color depressing, which makes her more homesick for Haiti. She describes this homesickness through a longing for a hot snack from home and the comfort of her “mother’s warm, thick arm in mine” (8). The first food that Fabiola tries in the US —sliced American cheese—leaves her with a negative impression of this strange country: “It tastes like a mix of glue, chalk and salt” (21).
However, Fabiola does notice that “America is more colorful than I imagined” because the people in America have many different skin tones, and there are many black people like herself (7). Detroit starts to become its own character in this section—particularly Detroit’s west side, where Fabiola lives with her cousins and aunt. Fabiola describes the nearby graffiti-covered liquor store; the small building with the label “House of God”; and a boarded-up, empty house, which Fabiola says “looks like a tomb for djab—angry spirits that haunt the night” (37). Through Fabiola’s eyes, we understand that this part of Detroit is deprived of economic opportunity and has been abandoned by residents in recent years. This Detroit is not quite the land of mansions and riches that Fabiola imagined when she thought of America.
So long as her mother is not with her, Fabiola’s dreams of enjoying America are on hold. Fabiola and her mother are close—she notes in her letter to Manman that they had never spent a night apart in Haiti—so being separated from her mother is forcing Fabiola to be truly independent for the first time in her life. Fabiola associates home with Haiti and her mother, but she tries to develop ties to her new family in Detroit. However, Fabiola notes the distance between herself and her cousins and aunt. There is no warmth in Matant Jo’s words—which Fabiola notes are as “dry as cassava bread”—when Matant Jo formally welcomes Fabiola to her home (20). Even though Fabiola receives some comfort by sitting next to Matant Jo, she realizes that Matant Jo is still no substitute for her mother.
Matant Jo is also devastated upon learning that her sister has been detained, so she may not be able to fully express her love for Fabiola due to her pain. However, Matant Jo still hopes Fabiola will fill the hole in her heart “with a little bit of love until my time comes” (58). While Matant Jo does not express her love through affection, she shows it in other ways, such as giving Fabiola money for her living expenses and paying for her tuition to a good school. Her cousins show they care, too: Pri looks out for Fabiola at school by telling classmates not to bother her cousin, while Chantal ensures that Fabiola is ready to enroll in school right away.
Still, Fabiola can’t help but compare familial customs in Haiti to familial customs in the US. On her first night in the US, her family leaves her alone in the kitchen without preparing any food for her arrival, whereas in Haiti, neighbors would be invited to celebrate and family members would cook a big meal on such an occasion. Indeed, Fabiola has her first meal alone in the US. With some shock, she wonders, “ […] is this how you treat family in America?” (20). Fabiola notes that she feels alone, despite being surrounded by family members, because her family members don’t really know her struggles. However, Fabiola slowly begins to bond with her family, such as when she braids Pri’s hair and says “with each braid, I begin to know and understand my dear cousins, my sisters from another mother” (43).
Fabiola also finds Detroit—and America—to be a strange place, and the narration uses literary devices such as simile to describe the foreign feeling of the country through its people: For example, they are dressed in thick coats that “make them look like the fat iguanas that cling to the bright-red flamboyant trees back home” (47). Even when describing these unfamiliar settings, Fabiola tries to relate them to images from back home in Haiti. Readers learn that Fabiola is not the only one who feels like an outsider in Detroit: Her cousins were also mocked for being the only Haitians in a largely African American community. Pri says that her classmates “thought just ’cause we were Haitian, we didn’t bathe, we wore mismatched colors, and we did voodoo” (45). The experiences of Pri, Chantal and Donna show how immigrants and their children have been made to feel like outsiders who don’t belong and whose beliefs are strange. That ignorant attitude even seeps into the thoughts of Chantal and Pri, who are skeptical of Fabiola’s beliefs related to voodoo, such as Papa Legba. Through Fabiola, the author is breaking down false and simplistic stereotypes about voodoo and showing it as a nuanced spiritual practice that blends elements of Catholicism with Haitian culture.
This section also begins to explore what America stands for through two key concepts: money and freedom. Fabiola sees firsthand how money can be used to buy one’s way into a better life, as Chantal does when she pays for Fabiola’s tuition to the good Catholic school, which offers a higher-quality education than public schools in the US. This scenario also raises the question of inequality in America, highlighting the fact that money can buy opportunities that the poor cannot access. If Fabiola can buy her way to a better education in the US, then how is that any different from Haiti, where Fabiola attended a private school using Matant Jo’s money? Still, America represents a land of opportunity and economic prosperity to many immigrants, as Matant Jo notes when she says that her dead husband wanted to buy the house at the corner of American Street and Joy Road so that he could get his own slice of “American Joy.” At this point, Fabiola associates money with freedom and success in America, an association she makes when Matant Jo gives her spending money: “And with my money, I have more courage to step out into this new free world” (60).
Finally, the author begins to foreshadow plot points that will emerge later in the book. Pri talks about how “dudes were always rolling up to the house with stacks” of money; she also says that her mother would hire men to guard their house (44). The way Pri talks about this flow of cash implies that Matant Jo may have been involved in illegal dealings, a fact that Fabiola will only later learn. Additionally, Pri, Chantal, and Donna are all agitated about the white girl whose overdose is reported on television, even though they have no reason to be, since she is a stranger. Their agitation foreshadows the cousins’ involvement in the girl’s death.
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