Towers Falling

“Last year, even my best friend, Keisha, stopped speaking to me when my family became homeless. Like it was my fault. Like I was going to give her germs or something. Like my family and me were just trash.”

Dèja deals constantly with a fear of being rejected because she and her family are homeless. In the early chapters, this concern manifests as a defensive spirit because Dèja was burned before by children like Keisha, who think of Dèja as less than because of her situation. She approaches her new school fearing that this will happen again, but she comes to find real friendship in Ben and Sabeen.

“Besides, I don’t like essays. Why write when you have nothing good to say? I’m just trying to get by—eight more years, I’ll be eighteen, and I won’t have to live in a shelter. Or go to another new school. I’ll be on my own, taking care of myself. I won’t ever get evicted.” 

The “what did you do last summer” essay appears as a symbol of Dèja’s transformation to believing that she does have something “good to say” (6). She comes to find home in her family and her friendships, and her essay serves as the novel’s final chapter, describing the importance of family and connection in the wake of 9/11. 

“You mean slavery. How come every white person sees a black person and thinks slavery?”

This quote subtly reminds readers not to assume. Dèja rebukes Ben when he suggests that her ancestors are from Africa. She says that her mother came from Jamaica, though later adds a pin to the coast of Africa, likely as a symbol of her father’s ancestry. However, her rhetorical question touches on the novel’s theme of race and emphasizes that people should not assume that all African Americans descend from slavery.

“‘Immigration,’ Ben murmurs. ‘Fourth grade. America is a land of immigrants, our book said.’”

In discussing 9/11, the novel tackles themes of race and discrimination, and the author intertwines this theme in this discussion between Dèja, Ben, and Sabeen about how people came to the US. They also acknowledge that in addition to the many who were forced to America through the slave trade, European colonization devastated indigenous populations. This scene also introduces the connections between people through the pins and thread tracing students’ ancestry to their shared connection in New York City.

“I think Ma shouldn’t have left Jamaica. She says she came to America ‘for a better life.’ Where? I don’t see it. In Jamaica, the water might be pretty like the water on Miss Garcia’s calendar. The Hudson River isn’t nearly as beautiful—only gray, no sparkling white waves.”

One of the major themes of this novel is the connections between Americans as they grapple with the tragedy of September 11, 2001. Dèja doesn’t understand this feeling initially: To her, the idea of an “American Dream” is fake, especially given that she and her family have not achieved a “better life” in her mind. As a result, she thinks that her mother should have stayed in Jamaica. 

“It’s my fault. I don’t know how it is or why it is, but it is. We were being a family, and I ruined it.” 

Dèja doesn’t understand why talking about 9/11 triggers her father, which reveals her innocence about the events and the fact that Pop doesn’t talk about it. This ultimately leads to Dèja’s frustration with her father being resolved, as she learns about it and Pop begins to grapple with his trauma. 

“Miss Garcia is looking at me—like she sees me, understands how hard things are for me. She makes me nervous.” 

Miss Garcia’s role as Dèja’s teacher is key to Dèja’s character development. Even though this new unit on 9/11 makes Miss Garcia nervous because of her own connection to the tragedy, she challenges Dèja to think critically about why they’re studying it. However, she balances this approach by trying to understand how difficult Dèja’s life is.

“Home is more than a place.” 

This sentence forms Dèja’s thesis for her essay about her home. Miss Garcia explained how a building is not as important as the people it contains, and Dèja starts to understand the importance of the connections between people, regardless of the size of their house or the amount of their possessions. This realization allows her to appreciate her family more, even though she doesn’t like living in Avalon. 

“Folks are either staring at their feet or snickering. They think I’m acting out. But I’m not. I want to know stuff. Understand.”

Deja feels like an outsider in her class at times, especially since the other students seem to understand what happened on 9/11. However, she tries to understand and isn’t trying to be impertinent when she asks what happened. This quote gets to the theme of living history and its importance because the book shows Dèja’s journey to learning more about 9/11, which is something she wants to do. However, like Pop, these students have been taught not to talk about the tragedy. Still, they must learn from the way that this history ripples out and affects them.

“‘American circle,’ says Sabeen. ‘Different but still American. Like the school map. Americans immigrate. Come from everywhere.’” 

The novel includes immigrants in its understanding of American identity after 9/11. In this scene, Sabeen, Ben, and Dèja think critically about what being American means and start to include immigrants in their definition. In addition, Sabeen provides a powerful example in her desire to welcome others as she was welcomed. 

“On 9/11, my family doesn’t leave the house much. Not unless we have to.” 

Sabeen provides a reminder of the xenophobia and racism extended toward Muslims and others of Middle Eastern descent in the wake of September 11, 2001. While she herself is an American, others choose not to see this, mistakenly associating her and her family with those who perpetrated the attacks. Her quote here is a powerful example of the visceral effect that this has had on her life after 9/11. 

“Muslim terrorists. Was Sabeen crying because she thought me and Ben would think less of her? Being Muslim doesn’t make her less than. Sabeen’s the nicest girl I’ve ever met.”

A major theme in this book is the danger of making assumptions about other people’s experience, especially in thinking about the lives of marginalized groups. Dèja feels “less than” because she is homeless, and she worries that Sabeen may feel the same because she is Muslim and because of her religion’s connection to 9/11. Dèja knows not to buy into the terrorist stereotype projected onto millions of Muslim Americans after the attacks. However, she realizes that others may embrace this stereotype and treat Muslims terribly, which could explain Sabeen’s sensitivity.

“But it’s not the differences that matter—it’s what unites us, holds together our society.” 

Dèja answers Mr. Schmidt’s question about the difference between the far and recent pasts for her history class. Her response gets to the question of why she and her classmates are focusing so intently on 9/11. Many of the lessons on the subject emphasize the communal feeling that, as Americans, they are more alike than they are different, an emphasis that pushes them toward coming together. 

“America is my history. My story. Not just ‘Homeless Dèja.’” 

This quote comes from an essay that Dèja writes in response to Mr. Schmidt’s question about what it means to be an American and why history matters. Dèja’s writing skills are clearly improving, and she even says that she feels proud of her response. This answer also indicates that Dèja has started to have a better understanding of her own self-worth. She feels connected to her community at school, partly through the lens of being an American and feeling that the country’s history is part of her history too. While she doesn’t yet know that her father was in the World Trade Center on 9/11, she now understands that it’s an important topic to study and important for her as a person.

“It’s not so bad here in the school yard. Weird—this is the best my life has been in a long while. No worry about getting poorer, falling down the ladder. We’re already at bottom. Can’t get any worse. I’ve got friends. Good teachers. I like Brooklyn Collective Elementary.”

This statement is a direct contrast to how Dèja approached the first day of school. She went in defensive and didn’t expect to make friends, but by this point in the novel, she realizes that she has something to lose if she were not able to continue at Brooklyn Collective Elementary. Her relationships with not just her friends but also with Miss Garcia have provided a place in which she can grow and be herself. 

“Ma and Pop are stuck. Maybe seeing where the towers stood, I might help Pop, Ma, all of us, get unstuck? Get out of Avalon and move on to a better life.” 

Dèja has this realization when she has become reluctant to go visit the site where the towers stood, considering how her life could be worse. In this moment, she sees that her life isn’t changing, and it could be better if her parents didn’t feel so stuck. Visiting the site now seems like it might offer her a chance to help them move forward. She hopes to understand the history more because it has had such an impact on her life, and this realization pushes her to go through with her plan to visit the site.

“I feel sick. Sad. Me and Ben are alike. Except he knows what’s happening to his dad. My pop didn’t go to war, but he’s been disappearing just the same.” 

Dèja learns not to make assumptions about others’ lives throughout the book. At the beginning, she surprises herself when she feels bad for Ben and Sabeen, who both seem wealthier than her family, when she learns about their individual struggles. On the subway, as Ben confides about his dad not really trying to talk to him, he also alludes to the fact that his father may have been in the war in Afghanistan, which he wants to forget. Dèja feels empathy toward Ben since it seems like he’s going through the same struggle to connect with his father as she is with hers. 

“Money might be part of the American Dream, but it isn’t all of it. Like a building doesn’t make a home.”

This quote brings together two themes. Dèja has started to understand that money doesn’t buy happiness because she has learned—through her experiences with Ben and Sabeen—not to assume that people who have more than her are happier. She has also seen the interconnectedness of communities at a small level like home all the way up to a bigger idea that people can come together as Americans. 

“Footprints. These are the tower footprints. I mean, what’s left. The foundations.” 

Visiting the 9/11 memorial doesn’t explain to Dèja what happened to her father, but she can experience the visceral loss by looking at the two square holes in the ground, which she calls “footprints.” She feels the sense of loss in imagining what used to stand there before looking into the depth of the waterfall in the middle of the city. She begins to feel the tragedy more fully when she realizes that people died there, so the two holes are also graves.

“That day, the day of the attack, was the clearest day I’d ever seen in New York. Perfect. Blue. A day so beautiful it promised nothing bad would happen.”

In this quote, Pop gives us a rare glimpse into life pre-9/11. This image of a beautiful day directly contrasts with the images of fear and destruction in the video of the attack Ben shows Dèja and that they watch together with Sabeen. This quote also explains why Pop gets anxious even when the weather is nice, demonstrating the effects of trauma. For him, that memory triggers images of all that he lost, both in terms of his friends and in terms of his mental health. 

“See, Dèja. I don’t exactly know what happened. But I imagine. Imagining makes my head ache, explode. Pow.” 

Pop is finally able to explain to Dèja what he feels and why. She gets just his perspective, which helps her understand him better, instead of a broader history of what happened on September 11th. This is important because it not only helps heal her relationship with her father, but it also helps Pop heal by talking about it. For most of the book, Dèja is frustrated with her father because of his inability to contribute to his family, but she immediately feels empathy toward him for going through what he did. 

“Six weeks at a new school has changed everything. School didn’t teach me everything about 9/11. Still, I understand a lot more now. I understand some of the enormous hurt to families, my family, and country.” 

Dèja has realized the importance of understanding history and how it is alive in her everyday life. During the course of the novel, she learns that 9/11 is not only a part of American history but also a part of her personal history. In being at her new school, she has become more empathetic toward all—regardless of wealth, religion, or any other factor—even though she once thought that those who had more didn’t deserve her pity. Now, she sees the difficulties and challenges in other people’s lives and their kindness and willingness to help, even when she doesn’t ask. This quote also gets to the interconnectedness of the country because she identifies as an American and recognizes 9/11’s effect on the nation as a whole. 

“I think maybe the terrorists hate us because we believe in freedom. For everybody. Freedom to be who you are and have different religions. Isn’t that why folks immigrate? That’s what makes our society family. America, home. Even though we’re all different, we’re the same. Americans.”

Interconnectedness as Americans permeates this novel, and Dèja’s growing understanding of the many social units that people belong to culminate in the belief that, as a nation, the US came under fire because of its freedom. In this quote, she makes the connection between home and America as her home. She also connects it with the way that people make assumptions because of difference by highlighting that the Americans can believe in any religion.