Sonia Sanchez's Short Story 'Norma'

Sonia’s Agreement The short story “Norma” by Sonia Sanchez is about a girl named Sonia. She was a shy and quiet student. Throughout her middle school years, Sonia looked up to a math genius and skilled French speaker, Norma. That was until time passed and Sonia forgot all about Norma. They coincidentally met again after high school, and Sonia saw all the poor choices Norma had made in her life. Norma and Sonia had agreed to meet again but Sonia knew she would never agree to agree again. At one point in her life she had admired Norma, but after finding out what type of person she had become she regretted her thoughts. The first reason Sonia had admired Norma was because she was perfect. When Sonia needed help with an algebraic question her teacher was not much help to so she relied on Norma. Sonia watched Norma as she went up to the board and answered her problem as well as the others flawlessly. To Sonia, Norma was brilliant, incredible, and a math genius. She had looked up to her for that and believed that Norma was truly amazing. Another reason was because Norma was in Sonia’s favorite class, French. She spoke perfectly and her accent was beautiful. Sonia thought Norma even spoke better than the teacher. One day, Norma had snapped at the

Sonia saw the Norma with heavy eyelids, four children, and tracks on her legs and arms. The genius, the linguist, the brain, all the things Sonia used to think of Norma as was no longer there. Norma was Sonia’s role model but because of her poor decisions she had let her down. She hoped that Norma’s children would be different and not become like Norma. All throughout Sonia's school life she had expected Norma to become superior in academics, but to know the fact that she went to college while Norma had more kids and did drugs would have changed Sonia's idea of who Norma