53 pages • 1 hour read
Natasha TretheweyA modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Natasha Trethewey was born one year before the Supreme Court’s landmark Loving v. Virginia decision, which legalized interracial marriages throughout the country. Her parents conceived her and married a short while before, which made her existence in Mississippi both illegal and an affront to the legacy of White supremacy that the South steadfastly held on to, despite the numerous advances made during the Civil Rights era in which Trethewey was born.
Natasha explores what her birth meant to each of her parents. Both Gwen and Rick believed that she had the best of both worlds—Black and White, American and Canadian, Southern and Northern—but, they had different ideas about what her racial identity would mean in the post-Civil Rights world. Rick rightly believed that her identity would give her a great deal to say, in writing, about the nature of race in the United States. He erroneously believed that her existence marked a new era, one in which the idea of race would become meaningless, particularly as a determinant in people’s lives. Gwen, knowing that her daughter would be regarded as Black, as children with diverse racial backgrounds had always been, had no such delusions.
After Rick divorced Gwen and became less present in their lives, Gwen and Natasha immersed themselves in Black life in Atlanta, which also meant observing the ways in which White people reacted to their recent presences in the city’s expanding suburbs.
By Natasha Trethewey
Beyond Katrina
Natasha Trethewey
Elegy for the Native Guards
Natasha Trethewey
Graveyard Blues
Natasha Trethewey
History Lesson
Natasha Trethewey
Myth
Natasha Trethewey
Native Guard
Natasha Trethewey
Theories of Time and Space
Natasha Trethewey
African American Literature
View Collection
American Literature
View Collection
Books on Justice & Injustice
View Collection
Grief
View Collection
Inspiring Biographies
View Collection
Memoir
View Collection
Mystery & Crime
View Collection
New York Times Best Sellers
View Collection
Sexual Harassment & Violence
View Collection
True Crime & Legal
View Collection