“Children must mos look after their parents; Grace took care of her own mother, herself a geitjie at the best of times, until the day she died in her very own arms, but not Tracy-Anne, oh no, she has not a cent left over to pass Grace’s way.

This quote stood out to me because it reminded of this book I am currently reading about the affects of American racism on immigrants. The book discusses this idea that immigrants have this mentality where they feel they are obligated to help their parents since they feel indebted to them for raising them with all the advantages that they were able to have by growing in the United States. There is a dependency on the youth by elders because in a way it’s their turn to care of them since they are all grown up. This places a burden mentally, financially and physically on youth who are still figuring out their life. The child may be faced with decision to defer their dream in terms of career and life goals because similar to how parents defer their dreams for preparing their child they are expected to do the same.

This connects to the earlier question that Fiona asked Grace of what her secret to looking so young was, which reminded of the stereotype that “black don’t crack.” This stereotype of older black people looking youthful is not really a compliment because it categorizes race as it’s own beauty standard where it feels like they are telling you that you are beautiful for a person of this race. This generalization doesn’t take into consideration that black comes into different shades. Because of this it doesn’t take in consideration that lighter people will crack sooner, but that doesn’t make them less black or less beautiful, which creates insecurities and separation among our own race.