Behold the Dreamers

Behold the Dreamers

by

Imbolo Mbue

Jende Jonga Character Analysis

A Cameroonian immigrant to the United States who settles in Harlem, New York while awaiting the approval of his application for asylum. This makes Jende an undocumented immigrant. Jende was born in 1970 and comes from the coastal town of Limbe, where most of his relatives still reside. His father, Pa Jonga, is a farmer and his mother, Ma Jonga, is a trader and pig breeder. He has four brothers, including Tanga, who has five children, and his middle brother, Moto. In his hometown, Jende worked as a farmer, and then as a street cleaner for the Limbe Urban Council. Jende comes from a poor family that lived in a two-room caraboat house. His poverty is partly the reason why the father of his wife, Neni, didn’t initially approve of their marriage. Jende attended CBC Main School for primary school and ended his secondary school education after he first impregnated Neni in 1990. Their daughter died of yellow fever at one-month old. Neni’s father had Jende sent to prison for impregnating his daughter, where Jende spent four months before his child was born. Jende moves to the United States in the summer of 2004 and first lives with his cousin, Winston, for one month. He works in Manhattan as a dishwasher, then as a livery cab driver in the Bronx. While living in the Bronx, he shared a two-bedroom basement apartment with six other men. After saving enough money, Jende sends for Neni and their son, Liomi and moves with them into a Harlem apartment. He and Neni marry in May 2006. Through Winston, he secures a job making thirty-five thousand dollars per year as the personal driver for the Edwards family. Jende is an honest, trusting, and obedient employee. He is also discreet and never divulges what he hears during his employer Clark Edwards’s phone conversations. Jende is also loyal to his family in Cameroon, offering them financial assistance, while still remaining careful to save. With his family in Harlem, he is usually loving, but occasionally harsh, domineering, and inclined to take out his frustrations related to his immigration status and his work on his family.

Jende Jonga Quotes in Behold the Dreamers

The Behold the Dreamers quotes below are all either spoken by Jende Jonga or refer to Jende Jonga. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
The Sustainability of the American Dream Theme Icon
).
Chapter 11 Quotes

“Listen to me,” Bubakar said, somewhat impatiently. “As far as Immigration is concerned, there are many things that are illegal and many that are gray, and by ‘gray’ I mean the things that are illegal but which the government doesn’t want to spend time worrying about. You understand me, abi? My advice to someone like you is to always stay close to the gray area and keep yourself and your family safe. Stay away from any place where you can run into police—that’s the advice I give to you and to all young black men in this country. The police is for the protection of white people, my brother. Maybe black women and black children sometimes, but not black men. Never black men. Black men and police are palm oil and water. You understand me, eh?”

Related Characters: Bubakar (speaker), Jende Jonga
Page Number: 73-74
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 14 Quotes

She was noticing something for the first time […] On both sides of the street […] she saw people walking with their kind: a white man holding hands with a white woman; a black teenager giggling with other black (or Latino) teenagers; a white mother pushing a stroller alongside another white mother; a black woman chatting with a black woman […] Even in New York City […] men and women, young and old, rich and poor, preferred their kind when it came to those they kept closest. And why shouldn't they? It was far easier to do so than to spend one’s limited energy trying to blend into a world one was never meant to be a part of […] She had her world in Harlem and never again would she try to wriggle her way into a world in midtown, not even for just an hour.

Related Characters: Jende Jonga, Neni Jonga, Winston Avera
Page Number: 94-95
Explanation and Analysis:

In his first days in America, it was here he came every night to take in the city. It was here he often sat to call her when he got so lonely and homesick that the only balm that worked was the sound of her voice. During those calls, he would ask her how Liomi was doing, what she was wearing, what her plans for the weekend were, and she would tell him everything, leaving him even more wistful for the beauty of her smile, the hearth in his mother’s kitchen, the light breeze at Down Beach, the tightness of Liomi's hug, the coarse jokes and laughter of his friends as they drank Guinness at a drinking spot; leaving him craving everything he wished he hadn’t left behind. During those times, he told her, he often wondered if leaving home in search of something as fleeting as fortune was ever worthwhile.

Related Characters: Jende Jonga, Neni Jonga, Liomi Jonga
Related Symbols: The Statue of Christopher Columbus
Page Number: 95-96
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 15 Quotes

“Because right now we're pulling these tricks and the SEC's playing dumb, but you know as well as I do that if this shit falls apart and the chaos starts spreading they're going to throw us out for the public to crucify, by claiming they didn’t know a damn thing, and we all know it's a lie.”

Related Characters: Clark Edwards (speaker), Jende Jonga, Tom
Related Symbols: The Doublers
Page Number: 100
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 23 Quotes

“At his age, all I wanted was the life that I have right now. This exact life, this was what I wanted.”

“It is a good life, sir. A very good life.”

“Sometimes. But I can understand why Vince doesn’t want it. Because these days I don’t want it, either. All this shit going on at Lehman, all this stuff we would never have done twenty years ago because we stood for something more, and now really dirty shit is becoming the norm. All over the Street. But try to show good sense, talk of consequences, have a far-long-term outlook, and they look at you as if you've lost your marbles […]”

“And I know Vince has got a point, but the problem is not some system. It is us. Each of us. We've got to fix ourselves before we can fix a whole damn country […]”

Related Characters: Jende Jonga (speaker), Clark Edwards (speaker), Vince Edwards
Page Number: 146
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 26 Quotes

By all accounts, no one in Limbe had ever given money to a money doubler and gotten the money doubled […] And yet people continued to give to them, falling into the trap of crafty young men who walked up to them on the street and visited them in their homes, promising quick and high returns on their money through incomprehensible means. One woman at Sapa Road had been so enraptured by the two charming men in suits who visited her at home that she’d given them all of her life's savings for double the money in three months’ time. Her hope, the story around Limbe went, was that she would use the doubled money to buy a ticket for her only son to move to America. But the doublers did not return on the appointed day. Or the day after. Or the month after. Destroyed, the woman had eaten rat poison and died, leaving the son to bury her.

Related Characters: Jende Jonga, Bosco
Related Symbols: The Doublers
Page Number: 169-170
Explanation and Analysis:

Many would be convinced that the plague that had descended on the homes of former Lehman employees was only a few blocks from theirs. Restaurateurs, artists, private tutors, magazine publishers, foundation directors, limousine drivers, nannies, housekeepers, employment agencies, virtually everyone who stood along the path where money flowed to and from the Street fretted and panicked that day. For some, the fears were justified: Their bread and wine would indeed disappear, along with the billions of dollars that vanished the day Lehman died.

Related Characters: Jende Jonga, Neni Jonga, Clark Edwards, Cindy Edwards
Page Number: 174
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 27 Quotes

“Everything’s going to be all right, Cindy […] Sean has to constantly remind me, too. He says I have to stop checking our portfolios twenty times a day, but I can't help it. I woke up every morning in Florence panicking about losing everything [....]”

Cindy did not immediately respond; she seemed lost in a maze of a hundred thoughts. “I wish I had Sean's calmness,” she finally said. “Nothing ever seems to unravel him.”

“Yeah, but you won’t believe what he suggested to me yesterday,” Cheri said […]

“He thinks maybe we should get rid of Rosa for a few months, to save” […]

“Yeah, that's exactly what we need now, right?” Cindy said. “To be cooking and cleaning and doing laundry while we're losing money and sleep […]”

“But it’s scary how bad this could get,” Cheri said, her tone turning serious as their laughter ebbed. “When people start talking about flying coach and selling vacation homes…”

Related Characters: Cindy Edwards (speaker), Cheri (speaker), Jende Jonga
Page Number: 180
Explanation and Analysis:

“What are you going to do now?” he asked her.

“Something really great," she said, sounding more upbeat than she had in the morning. “I've got over twenty years of experience, honey. I'm not worried. I'm going to take a month and relax before I start a job search.”

“You should do that.”

“I will, maybe go see my sister in Florida. That's the good thing about a life with no husband or children—no one to hold me back, make me feel as if I can't go where I want, whenever I want, do what I want. I'm going to enjoy myself in Sarasota, and when I come back, I'll dust off the old résumé.”

“You will get a new job very fast when you return,” Jende said. “Mr. Edwards will surely tell everyone that you were a good secretary.”

Related Characters: Jende Jonga (speaker), Leah (speaker), Clark Edwards
Page Number: 183
Explanation and Analysis:

More jobs would be lost […] The Dow would drop in titanic percentages. It would rise and fall and rise and fall, over and over, like a demonic wave. 401(k)s would be cut in half, disappear as if stolen by maleficent aliens. Retirements would have to be postponed […] College education funds would be withdrawn; many hands would never know the feel of a desired diploma. Dream homes would not be bought. Dream wedding plans would be reconsidered. Dream vacations would not be taken […] In many different ways it would be […] a calamity like the one that had befallen the Egyptians in the Old Testament. The only difference between the Egyptians then and the Americans now, Jende reasoned, was that the Egyptians […] had chosen riches over righteousness, rapaciousness over justice. The Americans had done no such thing. And yet, all through the land, willows would weep for the end of many dreams.

Related Characters: Jende Jonga, Leah
Related Symbols: The Doublers
Page Number: 184-185
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 49 Quotes

“In America today, having documents is not enough. Look at how many people with papers are struggling. Look at how even some Americans are suffering. They were born in this country. They have American passports, and yet they are sleeping on the street, going to bed hungry, losing their jobs and houses every day in this…this economic crisis.”

Related Characters: Jende Jonga (speaker), Neni Jonga
Page Number: 307
Explanation and Analysis:

“You should have been with me last week when I saw this man who used to drive another executive at Lehman Brothers. We used to sit together outside the building sometimes; he was a fresh round man. I saw him downtown: The man looked like he had his last good meal a year ago. He has not been able to find another job. He says too many people want to be chauffeurs now […] Everyone is losing jobs everywhere and looking for new jobs, anything to pay bills. So you tell me—if he, an American, a white man with papers, cannot get a new chauffeur job then what about me? They say the country will get better, but you know what? I don’t know if I can stay here until that happens. I don’t know if I can continue suffering like this just because I want to live in America.”

Related Characters: Jende Jonga (speaker), Neni Jonga
Page Number: 310
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 50 Quotes

Later, as she stood in front of the mirror staring at her face before applying her exfoliating mask, she promised herself she would fight Jende till the end. She had to. It wasn’t only that she loved New York City […] It wasn’t just because she was hopeful that she would one day become a pharmacist […] It was hardly only about […] things she could never find in her hometown, things like horse-drawn carriages on city streets, and gigantic lighted Christmas trees in squares and plazas, and pretty parks where musicians played for free beside polychromatic foliage […] It was mostly for what her children would be deprived of […] It was for the boundless opportunities they would be denied […] She was going to fight for her children, and for herself, because no one journeyed far away from home to return without a fortune amassed or dream achieved.

Related Characters: Jende Jonga, Neni Jonga, Liomi Jonga, Betty
Page Number: 316
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 52 Quotes

When he had told her of his plan to return home, she had wondered why he was coming back when others were running out of Limbe, when many in his age group were fleeing to Bahrain and Qatar, or trekking and taking a succession of crowded buses to get from Cameroon to Libya so they could cross to Italy on leaky boats and arrive there with dreams of a happier life if the Mediterranean didn’t swallow them alive.

Related Characters: Jende Jonga, Winston Avera, Ma Jonga
Related Symbols: The Statue of Christopher Columbus
Page Number: 323-324
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 62 Quotes

“One can never trust any government—I don’t trust the American government and I definitely don't trust the Cameroon government.”

“No, but it's our government and it's our country. We love it, we hate it, it's still our country. How man go do?”

“It's our country,” Winston agreed. “We can never disown it.”

Related Characters: Jende Jonga (speaker), Winston Avera (speaker)
Page Number: 380
Explanation and Analysis:
Get the entire Behold the Dreamers LitChart as a printable PDF.
Behold the Dreamers PDF

Jende Jonga Quotes in Behold the Dreamers

The Behold the Dreamers quotes below are all either spoken by Jende Jonga or refer to Jende Jonga. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
The Sustainability of the American Dream Theme Icon
).
Chapter 11 Quotes

“Listen to me,” Bubakar said, somewhat impatiently. “As far as Immigration is concerned, there are many things that are illegal and many that are gray, and by ‘gray’ I mean the things that are illegal but which the government doesn’t want to spend time worrying about. You understand me, abi? My advice to someone like you is to always stay close to the gray area and keep yourself and your family safe. Stay away from any place where you can run into police—that’s the advice I give to you and to all young black men in this country. The police is for the protection of white people, my brother. Maybe black women and black children sometimes, but not black men. Never black men. Black men and police are palm oil and water. You understand me, eh?”

Related Characters: Bubakar (speaker), Jende Jonga
Page Number: 73-74
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 14 Quotes

She was noticing something for the first time […] On both sides of the street […] she saw people walking with their kind: a white man holding hands with a white woman; a black teenager giggling with other black (or Latino) teenagers; a white mother pushing a stroller alongside another white mother; a black woman chatting with a black woman […] Even in New York City […] men and women, young and old, rich and poor, preferred their kind when it came to those they kept closest. And why shouldn't they? It was far easier to do so than to spend one’s limited energy trying to blend into a world one was never meant to be a part of […] She had her world in Harlem and never again would she try to wriggle her way into a world in midtown, not even for just an hour.

Related Characters: Jende Jonga, Neni Jonga, Winston Avera
Page Number: 94-95
Explanation and Analysis:

In his first days in America, it was here he came every night to take in the city. It was here he often sat to call her when he got so lonely and homesick that the only balm that worked was the sound of her voice. During those calls, he would ask her how Liomi was doing, what she was wearing, what her plans for the weekend were, and she would tell him everything, leaving him even more wistful for the beauty of her smile, the hearth in his mother’s kitchen, the light breeze at Down Beach, the tightness of Liomi's hug, the coarse jokes and laughter of his friends as they drank Guinness at a drinking spot; leaving him craving everything he wished he hadn’t left behind. During those times, he told her, he often wondered if leaving home in search of something as fleeting as fortune was ever worthwhile.

Related Characters: Jende Jonga, Neni Jonga, Liomi Jonga
Related Symbols: The Statue of Christopher Columbus
Page Number: 95-96
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 15 Quotes

“Because right now we're pulling these tricks and the SEC's playing dumb, but you know as well as I do that if this shit falls apart and the chaos starts spreading they're going to throw us out for the public to crucify, by claiming they didn’t know a damn thing, and we all know it's a lie.”

Related Characters: Clark Edwards (speaker), Jende Jonga, Tom
Related Symbols: The Doublers
Page Number: 100
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 23 Quotes

“At his age, all I wanted was the life that I have right now. This exact life, this was what I wanted.”

“It is a good life, sir. A very good life.”

“Sometimes. But I can understand why Vince doesn’t want it. Because these days I don’t want it, either. All this shit going on at Lehman, all this stuff we would never have done twenty years ago because we stood for something more, and now really dirty shit is becoming the norm. All over the Street. But try to show good sense, talk of consequences, have a far-long-term outlook, and they look at you as if you've lost your marbles […]”

“And I know Vince has got a point, but the problem is not some system. It is us. Each of us. We've got to fix ourselves before we can fix a whole damn country […]”

Related Characters: Jende Jonga (speaker), Clark Edwards (speaker), Vince Edwards
Page Number: 146
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 26 Quotes

By all accounts, no one in Limbe had ever given money to a money doubler and gotten the money doubled […] And yet people continued to give to them, falling into the trap of crafty young men who walked up to them on the street and visited them in their homes, promising quick and high returns on their money through incomprehensible means. One woman at Sapa Road had been so enraptured by the two charming men in suits who visited her at home that she’d given them all of her life's savings for double the money in three months’ time. Her hope, the story around Limbe went, was that she would use the doubled money to buy a ticket for her only son to move to America. But the doublers did not return on the appointed day. Or the day after. Or the month after. Destroyed, the woman had eaten rat poison and died, leaving the son to bury her.

Related Characters: Jende Jonga, Bosco
Related Symbols: The Doublers
Page Number: 169-170
Explanation and Analysis:

Many would be convinced that the plague that had descended on the homes of former Lehman employees was only a few blocks from theirs. Restaurateurs, artists, private tutors, magazine publishers, foundation directors, limousine drivers, nannies, housekeepers, employment agencies, virtually everyone who stood along the path where money flowed to and from the Street fretted and panicked that day. For some, the fears were justified: Their bread and wine would indeed disappear, along with the billions of dollars that vanished the day Lehman died.

Related Characters: Jende Jonga, Neni Jonga, Clark Edwards, Cindy Edwards
Page Number: 174
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 27 Quotes

“Everything’s going to be all right, Cindy […] Sean has to constantly remind me, too. He says I have to stop checking our portfolios twenty times a day, but I can't help it. I woke up every morning in Florence panicking about losing everything [....]”

Cindy did not immediately respond; she seemed lost in a maze of a hundred thoughts. “I wish I had Sean's calmness,” she finally said. “Nothing ever seems to unravel him.”

“Yeah, but you won’t believe what he suggested to me yesterday,” Cheri said […]

“He thinks maybe we should get rid of Rosa for a few months, to save” […]

“Yeah, that's exactly what we need now, right?” Cindy said. “To be cooking and cleaning and doing laundry while we're losing money and sleep […]”

“But it’s scary how bad this could get,” Cheri said, her tone turning serious as their laughter ebbed. “When people start talking about flying coach and selling vacation homes…”

Related Characters: Cindy Edwards (speaker), Cheri (speaker), Jende Jonga
Page Number: 180
Explanation and Analysis:

“What are you going to do now?” he asked her.

“Something really great," she said, sounding more upbeat than she had in the morning. “I've got over twenty years of experience, honey. I'm not worried. I'm going to take a month and relax before I start a job search.”

“You should do that.”

“I will, maybe go see my sister in Florida. That's the good thing about a life with no husband or children—no one to hold me back, make me feel as if I can't go where I want, whenever I want, do what I want. I'm going to enjoy myself in Sarasota, and when I come back, I'll dust off the old résumé.”

“You will get a new job very fast when you return,” Jende said. “Mr. Edwards will surely tell everyone that you were a good secretary.”

Related Characters: Jende Jonga (speaker), Leah (speaker), Clark Edwards
Page Number: 183
Explanation and Analysis:

More jobs would be lost […] The Dow would drop in titanic percentages. It would rise and fall and rise and fall, over and over, like a demonic wave. 401(k)s would be cut in half, disappear as if stolen by maleficent aliens. Retirements would have to be postponed […] College education funds would be withdrawn; many hands would never know the feel of a desired diploma. Dream homes would not be bought. Dream wedding plans would be reconsidered. Dream vacations would not be taken […] In many different ways it would be […] a calamity like the one that had befallen the Egyptians in the Old Testament. The only difference between the Egyptians then and the Americans now, Jende reasoned, was that the Egyptians […] had chosen riches over righteousness, rapaciousness over justice. The Americans had done no such thing. And yet, all through the land, willows would weep for the end of many dreams.

Related Characters: Jende Jonga, Leah
Related Symbols: The Doublers
Page Number: 184-185
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 49 Quotes

“In America today, having documents is not enough. Look at how many people with papers are struggling. Look at how even some Americans are suffering. They were born in this country. They have American passports, and yet they are sleeping on the street, going to bed hungry, losing their jobs and houses every day in this…this economic crisis.”

Related Characters: Jende Jonga (speaker), Neni Jonga
Page Number: 307
Explanation and Analysis:

“You should have been with me last week when I saw this man who used to drive another executive at Lehman Brothers. We used to sit together outside the building sometimes; he was a fresh round man. I saw him downtown: The man looked like he had his last good meal a year ago. He has not been able to find another job. He says too many people want to be chauffeurs now […] Everyone is losing jobs everywhere and looking for new jobs, anything to pay bills. So you tell me—if he, an American, a white man with papers, cannot get a new chauffeur job then what about me? They say the country will get better, but you know what? I don’t know if I can stay here until that happens. I don’t know if I can continue suffering like this just because I want to live in America.”

Related Characters: Jende Jonga (speaker), Neni Jonga
Page Number: 310
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 50 Quotes

Later, as she stood in front of the mirror staring at her face before applying her exfoliating mask, she promised herself she would fight Jende till the end. She had to. It wasn’t only that she loved New York City […] It wasn’t just because she was hopeful that she would one day become a pharmacist […] It was hardly only about […] things she could never find in her hometown, things like horse-drawn carriages on city streets, and gigantic lighted Christmas trees in squares and plazas, and pretty parks where musicians played for free beside polychromatic foliage […] It was mostly for what her children would be deprived of […] It was for the boundless opportunities they would be denied […] She was going to fight for her children, and for herself, because no one journeyed far away from home to return without a fortune amassed or dream achieved.

Related Characters: Jende Jonga, Neni Jonga, Liomi Jonga, Betty
Page Number: 316
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 52 Quotes

When he had told her of his plan to return home, she had wondered why he was coming back when others were running out of Limbe, when many in his age group were fleeing to Bahrain and Qatar, or trekking and taking a succession of crowded buses to get from Cameroon to Libya so they could cross to Italy on leaky boats and arrive there with dreams of a happier life if the Mediterranean didn’t swallow them alive.

Related Characters: Jende Jonga, Winston Avera, Ma Jonga
Related Symbols: The Statue of Christopher Columbus
Page Number: 323-324
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 62 Quotes

“One can never trust any government—I don’t trust the American government and I definitely don't trust the Cameroon government.”

“No, but it's our government and it's our country. We love it, we hate it, it's still our country. How man go do?”

“It's our country,” Winston agreed. “We can never disown it.”

Related Characters: Jende Jonga (speaker), Winston Avera (speaker)
Page Number: 380
Explanation and Analysis: