Color Of Water Reflection

If you’re looking for an inspiring book, “The Color of Water”, by James McBride is the book for you, because it shows the true struggles of immigrants and black people in America in the 20th century. The story is a split plot which shows the life story of Ruth McBride and her son James McBride. James McBride is son to his Polish Jewish Immigrant mother named Ruth and his biological black father, Andrew Dennis McBride. James’ father died of lung cancer while Ruth was pregnant with him, but James’ biological father is relevant to the story because in Ruth’s timeline he plays an important role of helping her start off her life in New York City. At the beginning of reading the book I got confused, but towards the end of the book I realized that

He grew up with his black step father Hunter Jordan. Growing up James struggled with his own identity because he was biracial. The story is set in the 60’s, so biracial people were not very easily accepted. Just as a child James had to deal with issues with identity and the power of the white man. This caused many conflicts between Ruth and her twelve children because they wanted to go against the restrictions given to them by society. I enjoy this conflict in the story because it shows the cold hard truth about what these kinds of families had to deal with instead of appropriating the story and pretending The Black Power movements didn’t happen. The story in Ruth’s perspective is set in Poland, where she was born in 1921, and later changes to Suffolk, Virginia, where her father worked as a rabbi. Ruth’s character was formed when she lived in the south in the 20’s and 30’s. Ruth also experienced hardships like her children because immigrants, especially Jews, were not very easily accepted. When Ruth grew older and married James’ biological father, she moved to New York City. I liked how in the story both James and his mother Ruth both describe, in their perspectives, the hardships of Harlem in the 40’s and