Arrivals and Departures

Summary

As the book continues, Maya Angelou talks about her new friend Louise and how close they were. One day at school, she got a love note from a boy that asked her if she wanted to be his Valentine. She didn't know what to do so she consulted Louise and they decided not to respond the letter. Maya wasn't the only one to make new friends, Bailey met a girl named Joyce with whom he played house with. He was very happy when they were together even thought she was older than him but one day, she suddenly disappeared. When graduation day came, Maya explains the event and how a white man came to the ceremony and began to talk about how he would better the education. One day, Momma decided that Marguerite and Bailey were going to live with their parents once again, so they were sent to San Francisco. Maya and Bailey, with their mother, then lived in Los Angeles when the Second World War began.


Quote 1

"She was around for a few months, and she had appeared, out of limbo, so she disappeared into nothingness. There was a gossip about her, no clue to her leaving or whereabouts. I noticed the change in Bailey before I discovered she was gone. He lost his interest in everything. He mulled around and it would be safe to say "he paled." (p. 150)


Bailey was affected after Joyce's disappearance as shown in this quote. I have noticed that the people he met were very important for him and that they had an impact in his life. He got upset when he was separated from the people he loved as demonstrated in this quote and also when he was separated from his mother.


Quote 2

"We were maids and farmers, handymen and washerwoman, and anything higher that we aspired to was farcical and presumptuous."(p. 180)


After the white man finished his speech and left the graduation ceremony, what is showed in the quote is what Maya thought. First of all, the white man made the colored people believe that they were only capable of being maids, handyman and anything else that served the white people. I think that it was disrespectful of the white man to say what he said in his speech and, even worse, in a place where there were children. Finally, this event showed discrimination against black people and everybody in the ceremony noticed it.    



Conclusion

I think that in the next chapters Maya is going to talk about how it was to live during the time of the Second World War and how she dealt with all the problems that came with it. When it comes to Momma and Uncle Willie, I think that they are going to stay in Arkansas and visit their relatives in Los Angeles. Another prediction I have for the next chapters is that Maya and her family are going to move to another place because of the war. It must have been hard for Bailey and Maya to leave their friends and family in Stamps and move to a new and strange place. This book has been very interesting so far and I'm glad to read the final part.

This is a picture of Los Angeles around the time when Maya and her family lived there.