This Side of Home

On the first day of school, Principal Green gathers the students for an assembly. Richmond High has had four principals in as many years, and Mr. Green is the first Black administrator Maya has seen during her time there. He tells the students, “[t]he person to your right might end up in jail, or on drugs, or dead before the age of twenty-five. That’s the statistic” (86). Maya wonders if Tony ever heard an administrator say something like that at his private school. After the assembly, Maya is shocked when Essence reveals that she is no longer planning to go to Spelman even though that has been the girls’ plan since middle school.

Maya notes that Richmond’s student body includes more white and Latinx students this year. She liked the part of the principal’s speech where he encouraged the students to look out for one another, but Nikki says that she isn’t responsible for her peers if they choose not to prioritize their education. Kate tells the group about the technology and gardens at her old private school and says that her current math teacher doesn’t have enough textbooks for every student. Maya challengingly asks Kate what she thinks accounts for the difference, and Kate says that her mother’s organization is trying to acquire more resources for Richmond. Maya sees Devin looking at a new student named Cynthia, and she notices that Tony is watching her with the same focus.

Maya and Nikki modeled for local companies between the ages of seven and 12. They were told that they were too plain when they were 13 because they had “[n]othing added to [their] Blackness to make a just-right complexion” (94). Maya feels jealous of Cynthia, who is Brown and has curves and curly hair.

Principal Green decides to allow students who were not elected to student council to participate in the student council’s first meeting. Tony, Cynthia, and two class clowns called Vince and Bags opt to attend. When the principal asks for ideas about celebrating diversity, Cynthia suggests having a multicultural potluck for Thanksgiving. Maya protests, “what does a buffet have to do with diversity? [...] Most students will just come to eat. They’re not going to learn anything” (98). Principal Green ignores the elected council members’ concerns and unilaterally approves the event. He asks Maya to gather information about the cultures that will be represented. When Tony volunteers to help her, she feels “like [her] heart has the hiccups” (100).

Maya, Tony, and Essence are all in Mrs. Armstrong’s journalism class. She is one of Richmond’s few Black teachers. Mrs. Armstrong shows her students an article about the school’s worsening attendance and test scores and asks them how they can fight back against the attacks on their school’s image. Maya points out that every school has both positive and negative aspects, and her peers add that Richmond doesn’t receive the same resources other schools do. Essence excuses herself to the bathroom to answer a call from her mother. When Maya checks on her friend, she hears Essence and Darlene yelling at each other.

Darlene is intoxicated. She accuses Essence of stealing money from her and demands that she come home immediately: “I’ma have all your stuff outside on the sidewalk in thirty minutes if you ain’t in this house” (108). Maya leaves school with her best friend and covers the bus fare for them both. When they arrive, Darlene has ransacked the living room and thrown her daughter’s clothes onto the lawn.

Darlene used to be the best friend of Maya’s mother, and Maya wishes that she knew how to help her become sober. Darlene grabs her daughter by the hair and shouts at her. Her boyfriend, Melvin, arrives with groceries and tells Darlene that he will pay her back soon. The adults retreat to Darlene’s bedroom, leaving the teenagers to clean up the mess. Maya earnestly hopes that Essence can attend Spelman and get away from her mother. She offers to let her friend stay the night at her place, but Essence declines.

Richmond’s football team wins their homecoming game, and Maya and her friends attend the dance afterward. As usual, police cars drive around the school during its events. Devin dances with Maya for two songs and then finds a table. Devin declines Cynthia’s invitation to dance with her, and Maya hopes that he did so “to prove his feelings for me, show her he was mine” (116). Instead, he spends the rest of the night talking to her about scholarships and college applications.

Maya asks Nikki and Essence to help her organize a boycott of the Tastes of the World Thanksgiving buffet, but neither of them have any interest in doing so. Essence is skipping school to do people’s hair so that she can pay for college application fees.

Maya’s father is so busy with his community activism that he misses dinner with his family for an entire week. When the twins were little, their mother told them, “[h]e’s the only father some of your friends have […]. They need him” (120). However, even Mrs. Younger grows weary of his absences. Nikki worries about how lonely their mother will be after she and her sister leave for college. Nikki tells their mother about Maya’s boycott, and neither of them see much point to it. Maya reminds them that their mother used to be involved in community activism as well, such as when she and her daughters wrote letters asking for improvements to their local park when the twins were in fifth grade.

Only the student council vice president Charles, Tony, and a white girl named Star join Maya in boycotting the buffet. Star expected there to be a rally, so she prepared a speech. The passionate girl reads it to her fellow boycotters, voicing her anger at the school’s lack of funding and the emphasis on test scores. She ends her speech by asking, “[w]hat are we going to do about it?” (128). The four teenagers weigh the question.