Home for Jacqueline

 

    Throughout the book Jacqueline considers many different places to be her home. She calls these places home, however, not because of the places themselves, but because of the people that live there which she considers to be her family. In other words, for Jacqueline, family is home.

In the beginning, Jacqueline is born in Ohio, and that is her first home with her family and her father. However, Ohio is not home for Jacqueline’s mother, and she then takes her children to move back to the South where she was raised. Woodson calls this chapter “home,” as she describes her grandparent's house and her grandparents welcoming her. Because her grandparents and cousins are in Greenville, this becomes home for her. Once Jacqueline and her mother leave their father behind in Ohio, and as they lose contact with him, Ohio stops becoming a home for Jacqueline.

Once Woodson’s family returns to the South, the South stops feeling like home because now a lot of Jacqueline’s mom’s brothers and sisters are either dead or have moved up North. As Jacqueline says, “…now coming back home isn’t really coming back home at all,” because all the people she associates with “home” (except her grandparents) are gone (Woodson, 47). This prompts the Woodson family to then move to Brooklyn, where Jacqueline feels like an outsider due to her Southern habits until she starts meeting people and starts to consider New York home as well. It is in New York that Jacqueline meets her best friend Maria, who she then considers to be her family as well, as only “family” are invited to Maria’s brother’s baptism.

After the death of Daddy, Greenville starts to lose its title of “home” as well, as Jacqueline’s grandma moves to Brooklyn to be with the rest of her family. Now, there is no one in Greenville to go back to. New York then becomes Jacqueline’s permanent home, as it is here that she not only stays but also really becomes informed about the Civil Rights movement. However, as Jacqueline ends her book by saying, the reader, or “You,” can decide which one of these “worlds” you can call your home and create your own story from there

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