The Color of Water

The first time James hears Ruth speak Yiddish is when she buys him school clothes on Manhattan’s Lower East Side and haggles with the Jewish merchants. James has always thought Jews were something from the Bible and not people he might interact with, let alone his own mother. Over his childhood, an awareness of Judaism slowly creeps into his life. A Jewish foundation pays Rosetta’s tuition at the historically Black Howard University. When Dennis returns from college, he lauds the Jews he met for supporting civil rights. Ruth, meanwhile, does not talk about Jews as white people. Almost without fail, Ruth works to secure admission to predominantly Jewish private schools for her children, who grow accustomed to being the only Black students in many classes. James finds that many Jewish people are caring and kind, while others are virulently racist.

During adolescence, James spends much of his time losing himself in clarinet practice or staring into the mirror, imagining a boy who “didn’t seem to have an ache. He was free. He was probably never hungry, he had his own bed probably, and his mother wasn’t white” (91). With his light skin and “‘good’ hair” (91), James is unsure whether he is Black. When he asks his brother David if their family is white or Black, David responds, “I’m black. But you may be a Negro” (93).

As the 1960s progress and his siblings grow older, they begin to break out of the small world Ruth created for them. Some run off to Europe, while others become pregnant before marriage.

During summer break, the cops stop Richie because he is walking ten feet behind a stranger who drops a bag of what the officers believe is heroin—it is actually quinine. Because Richie has 90 dollars in his pocket, which he cashed out as part of his student loans, the police assume he is involved in the drug trade and arrest him. At his hearing, when a public defender tells Richie to plead guilty, Ruth stands up and protests. The judge releases Richie to Ruth, one of the only white people in the courtroom.

James ends the chapter with a meditation on his Jewish and Black heritage. Although it pained him as a child, today he is grateful to belong to two rich cultural traditions, even if they seem at odds sometimes.

In 1936, Ruth falls in love with a young Black man named Peter. She emphasizes that this is not an act of rebellion against her racist father. Rather, having never felt love in her family, Ruth falls for the first man who loves her, and that man happens to be Black. If the town finds out, Peter will be killed—either by Tateh, the Ku Klux Klan, or even the “regular” white people. For that reason, they spend time on the far outskirts of town with Peter’s friends, who are terrified of her.

One month, Ruth misses her period. She suggests to Peter that they run away to get married, but Peter understandably replies that if anyone finds out she is pregnant with his child, he will definitely be hanged.

Sensing Ruth’s predicament, Mameh instructs her to go to New York for the summer and to stay with her grandmother.

Around age five, James begins to have an awareness of his stepfather, Hunter Jordan. When Ruth meets him shortly after Dennis’s death, Hunter works for the New York City Housing Authority, maintaining the heaters in the Red Hook Housing Projects where she lives. They marry, and about six years later, he buys Ruth and the kids a house in St. Albans, Queens. James writes, “He liked neatness, which meant our St. Albans house was out of bounds for him. However much he loved us, he couldn’t live with the madness in our Queens home” (119). Hunter visits on weekends, arms full of groceries and sweets.

The son of a Black man and an Indigenous American woman, Hunter fled Virginia in his twenties after a white sheriff arrested him for peeking under a circus tent without paying.

In 1969, the city forces Hunter to move out of his home in Fort Greene, Brooklyn, to make room for low-income housing. In return, he receives $13,000. At the time of the book’s writing, the location remains an empty lot, as surrounding brownstones sell for $350,000. Now 72 and with no home, Hunter retires and moves in with the family in St. Albans.

Three years later, Hunter has a stroke, which leaves lingering symptoms like slurred speech. At that time, 14-year-old James is the oldest sibling living in the house. Hunter tells him, “[Y]a’ll are special. And just so special to me” (127). Days later, Hunter dies after another stroke.