Drinking Coffee Elsewhere: Loss Of Innocence

In Drinking Coffee Elsewhere, the major theme that develops is a loss of innocence. This loss of innocence is a common theme in many of the stories including Brownies, Our Lady of Peace, Speaking in Tongues, and Geese. In the first story Brownies, there is a troop of black girl scouts and a troop of white girl scouts going camping. The black girl scouts have always looked at the white girls as different, and were calling them names. “They smell like Chihuahuas.” At the beginning of the story, all the girls are still “little children” and innocent. This all changes when one of the white girls from troop 909 calls one of the black girls a nigger. When the black girls heard of this, they decided to seek revenge on the white girls. When the troop

The main character Dina decided to travel to Japan for an escape from home. At the start of her trip, she decided to take a little “vacation” and enjoy herself in Japan. She then sold the return part of her plane ticket and went around exploring Japan and used up all her money. Dina and many other americans in a similar situation stayed at Ari's one room flat. She and her many roommate soon find themselves in a constant state of poverty and starvation. After arriving in Japan and living like this, she becomes disillusioned with the world and people around her. She becomes trapped in this foreign country with no way back home. She initially wanted to travel to Japan just for pleasure. “... she went to Japan for loveliness.” At the end of the story, she thinks about the Kamikaze pilots of World War 2, and how they would go on a one way trip with no return. She realizes that if she was given that same option now, she would have done something different. “She remembered how she'd marveled when she'd read it, amazed that anyone would do such a thing; how – in the all-knowing arrogance of youth – she'd been certain that given the same circumstances, she would have done something different.” The loss of innocence is shown because Dina is now aware of her own “Kamikaze mission” and how the viewpoint of others around her have