Fresh Gril

Fresh Girl

I can see the multi cultural theme in this book because there are apparent different ethnicities.
It was another book about cultural differences.

The main character, Mardi, is an immigrant American from Haiti. She is just 12 years old, but I still knew someone in her class would bully her because she is from Haiti. Isaac, who is also called Ike, always teases her and makes fun of her. I am not sure whether Ike is from Haiti or not. Elementary students are not mature. They do not know how to accept differences, especially when appearances are totally different from theirs. Differences, such as skin color, and language, caused her to be treated as nothing or somewhat weird. This problem still exists today.

This book not only deals with multi-cultural issues, but the book also deals with the sexual violence. Mardi acted very strangely in the book. She sometimes cut herself in bathtub. She was so concerned about what mother and Serina said about sexual things. At the end of the book, it is discovered that she was raped. This happened when her family was escaping from Haiti because of her uncle, Perin. She was very very young when she was raped. She did not know about sexual acts much.

Finally she told about everything that happened to her, and that was the beginning of how Mardi overcame the hardship.

This book also brings to mind a political issue today. I heard still now Haiti is not so stable as a country, and there was an earthquake which killed thousands of people. This book made me think of that. If their government was well-organized, the nation in Haiti will get over the disaster much easier.