Down These Mean Streets Study Guide

John Thomas, known to family and friends as Piri, is a child during the Great Depression and grows up in New York. His mother is a light-skinned Puerto Rican and his father is very dark. Piri takes his dark coloring from his father and spends his life trying to balance the need to fit in with his need to acknowledge his African American background. From the time he is twelve, he knows his father treats him differently from his siblings and he attributes it to his own dark-skinned appearance. (read more)