Previous
Slim Jackson
Ada Mae is Hattie and Slim’s daughter. She is named after Slim’s mother. Like her brother, Sonny, Ada Mae’s childhood was fraught with hostile and racist bullying that she internalizes until she hates being Black. She and Sonny are embarrassed to be seen in public with Slim, so they start to distance themselves from him despite his fierce love for them. This tragedy reveals how white-supremacist society can destroy family relationships. When Ada is 16 and Sonny 17, they dramatically leave home for London, swearing never to return to their miserable lives at Greenfields. Ada Mae has worked in a factory for much of her life, and this has left her body in bad shape. She marries a white man, and with each passing generation, the family gets whiter until none of them identify as Black any longer, demonstrating how internalized racism can completely erase racial and cultural identity.
Ada Mae Quotes in Girl, Woman, Other
The Girl, Woman, Other quotes below are all either spoken by Ada Mae or refer to Ada Mae . 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:
).
Chapter 4: Hattie
Quotes
Hattie asked him to tone it down with the stories, it was scaring their children and would make them hate themselves, he said they needed to toughen up and what did she know about it with her being high-yaller and living in the back of beyond?
you liked that I’m high-yaller, as you put it, so don’t you go using it against me, Slim
he said the Negro had reason to be angry, having spent four hundred years in American enslaved, victimized and kept downtrodden
it was a powder keg waiting to explode
she replied they were a million miles from America and it’s different here, Slim, not perfect but better
he said his little brother Sonny was the children’s uncle and they needed to know what happened to him and about the history of a country that allowed him to be murdered, and it’s our duty to face up to racial issues, Hattie, because our children are darker than you and aren’t going to have it as easy
Related Characters:
Page Number and Citation:
Explanation and Analysis:
Ada Mae married Tommy, the first man who asked, grateful anyone would
she didn’t exactly have suitors lining up in Newcastle wanting to proudly introduce their black girlfriend to their parents in the nineteen-sixties
Tommy was on the ugly side, a face like a garden gnome, her and Slim joked, none too bright, either
Hattie suspected the lad didn’t have too many choices himself
a coalminer from young, he was apprenticed as a welder when the mines were shut down
he proved to be a good husband and really did love Ada Mae, in spite of her colour
as he told Hattie and Slim when he came to ask for her hand
lucky that Slim didn’t lay him out
there and then
Sonny’s experience was somewhat different, according to Ada Mae who reported back that women queued up round the block for him
they thought he was the next best thing to dating Johnny Mathis
he married Janet, a barmaid, whose parents objected
and told her to choose
Get the entire Girl, Woman, Other LitChart as a printable PDF.
Ada Mae Quotes in Girl, Woman, Other
The Girl, Woman, Other quotes below are all either spoken by Ada Mae or refer to Ada Mae . 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:
).
Chapter 4: Hattie
Quotes
Hattie asked him to tone it down with the stories, it was scaring their children and would make them hate themselves, he said they needed to toughen up and what did she know about it with her being high-yaller and living in the back of beyond?
you liked that I’m high-yaller, as you put it, so don’t you go using it against me, Slim
he said the Negro had reason to be angry, having spent four hundred years in American enslaved, victimized and kept downtrodden
it was a powder keg waiting to explode
she replied they were a million miles from America and it’s different here, Slim, not perfect but better
he said his little brother Sonny was the children’s uncle and they needed to know what happened to him and about the history of a country that allowed him to be murdered, and it’s our duty to face up to racial issues, Hattie, because our children are darker than you and aren’t going to have it as easy
Related Characters:
Page Number and Citation:
Explanation and Analysis:
Ada Mae married Tommy, the first man who asked, grateful anyone would
she didn’t exactly have suitors lining up in Newcastle wanting to proudly introduce their black girlfriend to their parents in the nineteen-sixties
Tommy was on the ugly side, a face like a garden gnome, her and Slim joked, none too bright, either
Hattie suspected the lad didn’t have too many choices himself
a coalminer from young, he was apprenticed as a welder when the mines were shut down
he proved to be a good husband and really did love Ada Mae, in spite of her colour
as he told Hattie and Slim when he came to ask for her hand
lucky that Slim didn’t lay him out
there and then
Sonny’s experience was somewhat different, according to Ada Mae who reported back that women queued up round the block for him
they thought he was the next best thing to dating Johnny Mathis
he married Janet, a barmaid, whose parents objected
and told her to choose
