My original birth certificate indicates that my story is half missing…My mother’s name is Sybil Yvonne Jerkins, but there was a blank spot where my father’s name should’ve been.
-- Morgan Jerkins (narration) (Prologue)

Importance: The prologue partially functions to establish Jerkins' personal interest in her research project. Jerkins' research focuses on genealogy and ethnography, and she structures said research partially around her own family's genealogical history. Thus, she seeks to fill in both personal and societal blanks, as symbolized by the blank on her birth certificate where her father's name should be.

But, before I could discover the unknown, I decided to start with what I did know—the only cultural component that did not change, from my experience, not matter which Black home I visited in America: food.
-- Morgan Jerkins (narration) (Part 1, Chapter 1)

Importance: Jerkins occasionally structures her research around specific cultural touchstones of Black culture, and in this chapter, she focuses on various foods and...