50 pages • 1 hour read
Ibi ZoboiAmerican Street
Fiction | Novel | YA | Published in 2017A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Chapters 7-12Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 7 Summary
It is Saturday in Matant Jo’s house. Loud music plays. Matant Jo is dressed in a nice shirt and sitting with four men in the living room. Donna has picked out a tight dress for Fabiola to wear to a birthday party. Pri asks Fabiola about her voodoo items. Fabiola says that ever since her uncle Phil—her cousins’ father—was killed, Fabiola and her mother have been praying to lwas to protect her family. Donna puts heavy makeup on Fabiola and gives her a hair extension. Chantal disapproves but drops off Fabiola, Pri, and Donna at the party at a nightclub. Fabiola sees a boy in a blue cap—the one who helped Bad Leg get up the other night after Donna’s boyfriend punched him. Fabiola smiles at the boy.
Fabiola sees the young man who punched Bad Leg; he tries to dance with Fabiola. He wears an eyepatch over one eye, and his posture gives Fabiola the impression that he has been through some hard crime. Dray puts his arm around Donna. The boy in the blue cap comes over and introduces himself as Kasim. Kasim gives Fabiola the nickname “Fabulous.” Pri starts doing a fast dance called the “Detroit Jit,” and Fabiola tries to imitate her. Fabiola sees Dray abusing Donna and grows concerned. Kasim flirts with Fabiola. Fabiola jokes, saying that Kasim’s name means “broke” in Creole. Fabiola dances with Kasim. After the party, Donna is hungover, and Pri yells at Dray for hurting Donna. Donna leaves with Dray and Kasim, and Fabiola joins them in the car. As they approach Matant Jo’s house, Fabiola sees Bad Leg singing a strange poem on the street corner again. Bad Leg seems to be singing about Dray and Donna’s constant fighting, as he asks, “Baby, why you always on the attack?” (75).
In a message from Fabiola to her mother that ends Chapter 7, Fabiola says she is doing her usual prayers to the lwas. Fabiola sees an image of her mother crying in the flames of the candle that she lights during her prayers. She wonders if the spirits are punishing her and Manman. Fabiola says that Matant Jo misses Manman badly. She tells her mother “kenbe fem” or “hold tight” in Creole (77).
Chapter 8 Summary
Chapter 8 begins with Fabiola telling her cousins, Chantal and Pri, about Bad Leg’s riddle. Chantal and Pri dismiss Bad Leg as a crazy homeless man who tells lies. Fabiola approaches Bad Leg at night while he’s humming another tune. Bad Leg welcomes Fabiola to “American Joy,” which refers to the street corner of American Street and Joy Road that he sits on (81). She asks him what happened to his leg. Bad Leg says that his father came to Detroit back in the 1960s, when it was still considered a place of economic opportunity. Bad Leg implies that he briefly visited his father on “the other side,” perhaps in heaven—or hell—and that he gave his father his leg. When Bad Leg came back to the world of the living, his left leg no longer worked. Fabiola believes that Bad Leg is really Papa Legba—a Haitian voodoo spirit guide who stands at a crossroads and opens the doors to things good and bad. She asks Bad Leg/Papa Legba why he will not let her mother pass. He does not answer. Fabiola returns to the house. Papa Legba starts singing again: “[…] Beware the lady dressed in brown / Don’t even know her way downtown […]” (83). Fabiola tells Chantal she believes Bad Leg is Papa Legba, and Chantal says that Matant Jo used to believe the same when she first moved into the house. Chantal, however, doesn’t believe it.
Chapter 9 Summary
Fabiola starts packing a bag, thinking she will make her way to New Jersey to find her mother. Chantal tries to discourage her; in the process, Chantal tells her about the time she left home for six days to find her father’s killer. Chantal does not reveal the identity of the killer. Fabiola runs into the same woman she encountered the week before in the CVS. The woman wears a brown coat and mentions knowing Fabiola’s cousins and their mother, due to Uncle Phil’s killing many years ago. The woman takes Fabiola to a nearby restaurant. She introduces herself as Detective Stevens. She says that she can help free Fabiola’s mother in exchange for information from Fabiola. A white girl died after taking a bad batch of drugs, and Detective Stevens believes Donna’s boyfriend, Dray, was involved. The detective wants information connecting Dray to the drugs at a party in the nice part of town so that she can arrest him.
Detective Stevens says people from Detroit don’t want to talk to the police; as a result, bad people like Dray stay on the street and more people die. Detective Stevens hands Fabiola her business card. Fabiola leaves the restaurant and sees Kasim driving nearby. She gets in his car. Pri calls Kasim, worried that Fabiola has left for New Jersey. Kasim takes Fabiola to get some food. They joke around. Kasim tells Fabiola that he’s saving up money to buy his own place. He says that he works at a cafe. Kasim gets a call from Dray but says he’s busy.
Chapter 10 Summary
Fabiola and Kasim dine at a Middle Eastern restaurant. Fabiola hopes to find some similarity between the food there and the food she ate in Haiti, but the food disappoints her. Fabiola says that her mother wants to retire in Detroit. Kasim says that his father lives in Tennessee. Fabiola takes in Kasim’s appearance; he has good manners and clean hands. She asks if he likes to read, which offends Kasim, as he believes Fabiola is trying to imply that he’s dumb. Fabiola clarifies, saying that she wants to know if he likes school and studying. Kasim tells Fabiola that people don’t ask guys things like that around Detroit. Fabiola implies that Dray is a drug dealer and says she does not like him because he beats Donna. Kasim says that, unlike Dray, he doesn’t believe in beating women, and that he’s only sold weed on occasion to help his family. Kasim drives Fabiola back to her house. He kisses her.
Chapter 11 Summary
Fabiola tells her cousins about her time with Kasim. Pri teases Fabiola about whether she and Kasim will have sex, and Chantal urges her not to do anything Fabiola’s mother would not approve of. Chantal stresses the importance of studying hard and getting a good job. Donna says the important thing is whether Kasim loves Fabiola. Fabiola asks Donna if she loves Dray. Donna says yes, but the conversation stops after that question. Later that night, when everyone is sleeping, Fabiola wonders what she should do. She goes outside to talk to Bad Leg/Papa Legba, who is singing again, this time about “crossroads, cross paths” (111). As she looks from American Street to Joy Road, Fabiola realizes she must make a choice whether to tell the truth—help the detective—or not. She is choosing between two possible futures.
When she goes back to the house, Chantal scolds Fabiola for putting herself in danger. Fabiola talks about the dangers she faced in Haiti, like gunshots, political protests, and the deadly earthquake in 2010. Chantal alludes to the fact that there is danger in Detroit, too, such as police brutality against black people. Chantal says she wishes she and her mother had stayed in Haiti with Fabiola and had a nice life. Fabiola says that it costs a lot of money to have a good life in Haiti. Fabiola asks Chantal about the white girl who died taking drugs; she also asks Chantal whether she plans on becoming a doctor. Chantal merely tells Fabiola to focus on her studies and to stop asking questions.
“Chantal’s Story” Summary
We read a short story from Chantal to Fabiola. Chantal discusses her memories of translating newspaper articles for her mother after her father’s death, and her memories of Haiti and speaking Creole. She talks about how both Haiti and America have shaped her. Chantal says her mother wanted her to attend a big university, but Chantal couldn’t leave behind her family—her home. She ends with a discussion of what it’s like to technically be an immigrant in America—Chantal was born in Haiti—and how Fabiola forces Chantal to remember Haiti and all that she has left behind.
Chapter 12 Summary
Fabiola’s English teacher, Mr. Nolan, gives Fabiola a D on a paper because she didn’t cite any sources. Fabiola’s classmate and new friend, Imani, says that she can give Fabiola advice on how to improve her paper in exchange for a meal. Fabiola is grateful to have a friend and believes Papa Legba has opened the door to this new friend. Imani and Fabiola take the bus to the café where Kasim works. Imani tries to give Fabiola advice on her essay, but Fabiola cares only about Kasim, who flirts with Fabiola. Imani teases Fabiola about Kasim. Fabiola is happy but grows concerned again when she thinks of her mother locked up.
Chapters 7-12 Analysis
This section continues to unravel the stories and struggles of Fabiola’s aunt, cousins, and friends. Not only Fabiola’s dreams have been put on hold. For example, although Matant Jo wanted her smart and studious daughter, Chantal, to go to a big-name university, Chantal—who wanted nothing more than to leave Detroit—stayed close to home to help her family.
Chantal’s choice highlights one of the book’s themes: sacrifice for family. Family comes first, even above one’s own dreams. People work hard to protect their families, even if protecting them means selling drugs or other illegal activities—as Kasim says, “Shit you do for fam,” referring to selling marijuana in order to pay for household necessities (104). Zoboi shows how important family is when Fabiola prepares to trek hundreds of miles across a foreign country to find her mother.
Fabiola begins developing strong feelings for Kasim in this section. Fabiola is still a teenage girl who has normal, teenage feelings, despite her adult struggles of trying to free her mother and live in a foreign country without much support. She yearns to experience love and marriage, as we see when she fantasizes about having a joyous wedding, which she with the simile: “I can’t hide the smile on my face, because the thought of getting married makes my insides like syrup” (107). Fabiola is experiencing the first signs of young love in this section. As her love for Kasim grows, she starts to experience the city of Detroit in a new way. Whereas Fabiola previously saw the city of Detroit as a gray and cold place, the city now seems lively: “I stare out the car window still smiling, and somehow, Detroit becomes more colorful than it’s ever been” (97).
Still, Fabiola feels conflicted, as she cannot truly enjoy this experience with Kasim—or any of the pleasures of America—while her mother continues to suffer in jail. Bad Leg/Papa Legba foreshadows in his song about crossroads that Fabiola will need to make a hard choice if she wants to get her mother back. She cannot have both the comforts of an easy life in America and her mother.
Bad Leg/Papa Legba functions as a recurring motif in this section and throughout the novel. As the voodoo spirit guide (lwas) of the crossroads, he repeatedly opens doors for Fabiola, and she must decide whether they are good or bad. We also see how Bad Leg/Papa Legba tries to warn Fabiola about “the lady dressed in brown,” presumably Detective Stevens (83). However, Fabiola is still naïve to the way that cops operate in America, and she is deceived by the detective’s appearance. Fabiola thinks she can judge that the detective is a trustworthy person based on her strong leather boots, because her Manman told her that a smart person wears shoes “made for endless walking in search of a better life” (87).
Fabiola turns out to be a better judge of character when it comes to Kasim. Fabiola describes Kasim’s hands: “His fingernails are short and clean, and in between, his fingers are not cracked and ashy […] he doesn’t have the hands of someone who serves coffee all day” (100). It is clear that Kasim takes great care to maintain his appearance; however, Fabiola correctly determines that something is off, since he works in a café all day but doesn’t have rough hands. Fabiola tries to understand what kind of a person Kasim is by his mannerisms and appearance, but she’s still unsure, so she asks if he has an interest in books to understand whether he takes pleasure in learning things.
As in the previous section, food continues to play an important role for Fabiola. Fabiola is disappointed when she finds the food at the Middle Eastern restaurant to be bland and lacking in spice, unlike Haitian food. Still, dining is a new experience for Fabiola, who has only ever been to one restaurant in Haiti. Again, the frequency with which Americans dine out—whereas most Haitians would only go to a restaurant on rare occasions—points to yet another difference between Haiti and America that Fabiola discovers.
This section reminds the reader that Fabiola isn’t the only one torn between Haiti and America. Chantal, who came to the US as a child, sometimes wishes that her mother had stayed in Haiti with Fabiola. Chantal dreams of this other life in Haiti: “We’d go to the beach every day, and eat good Haitian food, and go shopping for jeans and American clothes, and whatever we needed to know about America, we’d see it in the movies” (114). Although Fabiola tells Chantal that those dreams would be unlikely to happen in Haiti as she imagined, a kinship begins forming between Chantal and Fabiola. Fabiola, despite being a new immigrant to the US and considering herself Haitian, is an American citizen; Chantal has lived in the United States for a much longer time than Fabiola, but she is not a citizen. Fabiola has been yearning for Chantal’s life—to study hard and get a good job, for example becoming a doctor—while Chantal has secretly been wishing for Fabiola’s life back in Haiti. More than any of the other characters, Chantal embodies the dualities that come with being Haitian American: “Creole and Haiti stick to my insides like glue—it’s like my bones and muscles. But America is my skin, my eyes and my breath” (115).
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By Ibi Zoboi
