The Church

The church is a setting in Ada’s life that is central to many of her relationships and greatly influences the ways in which she relates to her family, her identity, and herself. Ada attends multiple churches throughout her life, many of which are attended for very short periods of time because her father was seeking a new church that would meet all his spiritual and cultural needs. While being brought alongside her father’s deep and intense search for a closer relationship to God, Ada would pay most attention in a church setting to the dances and movements of the African women who were also in attendance. The ways in which these women would move their bodies in that environment was Ada’s main connective aspect to a spiritual feeling that she felt within that Church environment.

Elementary School

Elementary school is a difficult and problematic...