Thirteen-year-old Reha is part of two worlds: one that is Indian and one that is not. She wants to chew gum, wear tight jeans, go to dances and have fun. But Amma tells her they are different from Americans. They "focus on what is important to succeed."
Reha and her parents live in New York where her father works as an engineer and her mother works in a hematology lab at a hospital. After giving birth to her, Reha's mother, whose name Punam means moon, couldn't have more children, so Reha is an only child. Her best friend is a girl named Sunita who comes from another Indian family. Sunita doesn't attend Reha's private school so they see each other on weekends. Rachel is Reha's best friend at school. She's smart and funny.
Reha struggles to fit into two worlds: the world at school which is very American and the world at home which is very Indian. Regular trips to India to visit family and relatives help ground her in her own culture, but make coping at school more difficult.
When her school hosts a dance, Reha struggles to get permission to attend. Eventually, her parents relent, on the condition that Amma make her dress. Reha agrees even though she would rather buy something more fashionable from the mall.
However, after the festival of Deepavali (Diwali), Amma begins to feel unwell. She has nosebleeds, is tired and cold and spends a lot of time sleeping. Finally, Amma agrees to let Reha buy something from a store. At the dance, Reha has a wonderful time dancing to her favourite songs. She even sits outside holding hands with Pete, a classmate with whom she has been studying with the past few weeks.
However, that night, Reha's life takes a dramatic turn for the worse when Amma is taken to the hospital. After many tests, Amma is diagnosed with acute myeloid leukemia and she undergoes chemotherapy. Amma's illness fills Reha with guilt. She feels badly about being embarrassed by her parents, by worrying over fitting in at school, and so she decides to fight her guilt with duty and virtue. Reha will become the daughter her parents wish her to be by focusing on school.
But when that isn't enough, Reha must deal with loss and find the courage to be the girl her mother always wanted her to be.
Discussion
Red, White, and Whole is set in New York, 1983. LaRocca manages to capture many of the cultural facets of that decade, listing songs that Reha and her friends listen to such as The Safety Dance and Time After Time and the Star Wars movies. Readers today will likely recognize at least some of the cultural references as many are still popular today. (Tip: no one from that generation called the first Star Wars movie a New Hope!) Contrasting with this is are several poems which tell the story of Savitri and Satyavan, a Hindu couple whose love seems doomed.
The novel explores the challenges first generation children of immigrants encounter while growing up in a new country. These children are often caught between the culture of their parent's homeland and the culture of their new home. The clash between old and new cultural and social norms as well as family expectations can make life confusing and difficult.
In Red, White and Whole, Reha experiences all of this. Unlike her parents, Reha was born in America. However she feels trapped by her parents' expectations, especially those of her mother. "I'm caught between the life I want to lead and the one she thinks I should." This is especially a problem for Reha who is an only child and who therefore is the sole focus of her parents. She notices this especially when visiting her friend Sunny's large family where things go unnoticed.
In the poem, Expectations, Reha lists some of the expectations on her; she is expected to focus on her studies, not to like boys and not expected to date. But Reha would love to follow her own heart but because she is the only child on her mother's side of the family, she is "the one who carries everyone's hope, everyone's expectations."
When Reha visits India, within her own family she feels like she fits in. But outside her family, even in India she is different,
"...not just because of how I dress,
but because of how I talk, and walk,
and breathe.
No matter where I go,
America or India,
I don't quite fit."
This makes life challenging for Reha who sees her friends going to dances and wearing clothes that are in fashion. Before asking permission to attend a school dance, Reha feels that she is "always halfway, caught between the life my parents want and the one I have to live." In a secret aerogramme addressed to her parents but not sent, Reha expresses her deepest wish, that her parents would tell her "You don't have to worry about living in two worlds. You live in only one world, and that is the world in which we love you. No matter what your choices are. We raised you, we trust you, and we love you."
However, after her mother's death, in an aerogramme her mother wrote to her before she died, Reha learns that her mother really did understand the challenges of dealing with two cultures. And that her resistance to Reha was based on the fear that she might forget the values and culture of her heritage. But Reha's mother also encourages her, telling her she really does belong. "You, my girl, should take your gifts and your hard work and be whatever you want with them. Be a doctor, if you liek. Or be a poet, or an actress, or a mother who stays home with her children. Or all of these things together. Surround yourself with good people, and be happy."
It's a message all young people need to read and hear.
LaRocca highlights some of the ways Reha and her mother experience both discrimination and a lack of understanding. Her mother, who works in a lab, has been asked to stop wearing the Bindi, a coloured dot worn in the middle of the forehead by Hindu women to indicate they are married, because it makes her coworkers uncomfortable. Reha is asked if she speaks "Indian" and thinks,
"I want to tell her that
people from India,
just the small sample of Indian people in her own city,
speak over a dozen languages.
We are Hindu, Muslim, Christian,
and other religions.
We are all different shades,
from dark brown to almost as pale as she is."
Yet the story and the characters do not get bogged down in focusing on racism or cultural insensitivity. When Reha's mother becomes ill, Reha receives support from many students in the school, who try to comfort her or show their concern for her.
Despite the somewhat sad storyline, LaRocca has managed to write an uplifting story about a young girl who has the courage to face the death of a beloved mother and the courage continue on, to be who she wants to be. In the final poem of the book, LaRocca leaves her young readers with this important message:
"I have one life.
That's all any of us gets.
And I know that I will make my way.
For all rivers lead to the same ocean,
we all look upon the same sky.
I will write my own story."
LaRocca, in her Author's Note at the back, points out that "...even when you feel torn apart, you can still be a whole person, ---not just despite the things you struggle with, but because of them.:
Book Details:
Red,White and Whole by Rajani LaRocca
New York: Quill Tree Books 2021
217 pp.
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