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This test consists of 5 short answer questions, 10 short essay questions, and 1 (of 3) essay topics.

Short Answer Questions

1. In Chapter 3, what does Fabiola hear outside her window?

2. In Chapter 4, who is Papa Legba?

3. In Chapter 4, what does Fabiola do for Pri?

4. What does the woman in CVS ask Fabiola in Chapter 6?

5. What does Fabiola see in Chapter 6 as she pulls away from the store?

Short Essay Questions

1. What happens with Fabiola’s paper in Chapter 12? What does Mr. Nolan offer?

2. What does Majorie say in Majorie and Valerie's Story happened after the fall of the dictator? Why did they come to America?

3. Why does Pri say in Primadonna's Story that she goes hard for Dray? How does she justify their relationship?

4. What does Bad Leg tell Fabiola about his leg in Chapter 8? What does she realize about him?

5. Where does Kasim take Fabiola on a date in Chapter 14? What does he say about her when she is nervous going?

6. What intersections does the Francois house rest on? What does Fabiola realize about this in Chapter 11?

7. What does Matant Jo say about Papa Legba in Chapter 16? What does she say about Fabiola believing in him?

8. Who does Fabiola meet in Chapter 6? How does this person describe her cousins?

9. What does Fabiola do to worship in the morning in Chapter 2? When Chantal asks, what does she say about why she does this?

10. At the nightclub, what does Fabiola remember about the boys back home? What does she think when she meets Dray?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Kasim's name literally means "divided among many" (36). How does the meaning of his name come to play out in the novel? How does his name show how he is connected to the other characters? Write a response to his character and how he is connected to others.

Then connect his death and how the novel treats his death to the larger pattern of police shootings towards black and brown young men in American. How is the novel tying Kasim to the larger social picture? Why, through this analysis, is it Kasim who is killed?

Essay Topic 2

Violence is a part of the neighborhood at 8800 American Street and a reality of life for Fabiola back in Haiti.

In the face of the threat of violence, how do characters adapt to survive? Choose three characters to compare their journeys and how they deal with the reality of their lives in the places they experience violence.

Tie their journeys to a larger discussion of how violence is represented similarly or differently in American and Haiti and where in each of these places, the source of the violence comes from.

Essay Topic 3

Research the earthquake in Haiti. Use two sources to write about what happened. Then look at how Fabiola remembers the experience of being in the earthquake and how she relates this to the events at the end of the novel. How is the book a memory project of the events of the earthquake? How does it show a survivor of an event such as this continues to interpret their experience after it happens?

(see the answer keys)

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