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Chapter 4
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Piecing Me Together, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Intersectionality, Identity, and Discrimination
The Power of Language
Mentorship, Opportunity, and Dignity
Friendship
Summary
Analysis
When Jade gets home, Mom is asleep but she is still wearing her nylons and shoes. Jade turns off the TV and she looks through the cupboards and the fridge: both are full of food. In the freezer, she finds ice cream. Later, Lee Lee arrives and the girls talk about their day over bowls of ice cream. E.J. interrupts and he tries to steal Jade’s ice cream. When he leaves, Lee Lee says she loves her history teacher. She taught them today about York, the black slave who traveled with Lewis and Clark. Jade is shocked that a black person was on the expedition at all.
While Jade is supposedly getting a “better” education at her private school, Lee Lee seems to be the one learning about things that actually matter to her and that are relevant to her experience as an African American. In this sense, Northside may be better at serving its student population than St. Francis, as it teaches them about a more diverse variety of people.
Themes
Lee Lee pulls out her worksheet, which has a picture of York, and she tells Jade that both York and Sacagawea helped on the expedition. York was a good hunter, and both he and Sacagawea got to vote when the party had to vote on what to do. It was the first time a black man and a woman got to vote. Lee Lee says that Lewis and Clark told tribal leaders that their new “great father” was in the east and that he owned all their land now. They didn’t mention that York was a slave or that their great father owned slaves too. The girls wonder if the Native people saw their displacement coming and if York and Sacagawea knew it was coming, too. Jade allows Lee Lee to change the subject but she continues to think about York and Sacagawea, and how they had a sort of freedom but no power.
Jade sees herself in York: like York, Jade is granted opportunities but she still feels powerless. Jade has a degree of freedom at St. Francis—she’ll be able to go to a good college, she has access to scholarships and programs like Woman to Woman, and she seems to be on her way up in the world. Despite this, Jade also recognizes that she doesn’t have much power to advocate for herself or dictate how her classmates and teachers see her. It makes her feel powerless when Mrs. Parker tries to foist opportunities like Woman to Woman on her without considering how Jade might feel about it.
Themes
