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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. How do the mothers react to the boys being given prison sentences?

2. What makes the girls who have stayed angry?

3. What is NOT an example of the blending of cultures given by the narrator?

4. Although the girls feel the urge to run away from college, why do they stay?

5. What do those who have stayed say is the difference between the two types of girls?

Short Essay Questions

1. What does the narrator say the girls bring home from the Motherland?

2. What does the narrator say is the thing the brown girls love most about what they see in the motherland?

3. What seems to have led to Trish’s fatal car accident?

4. What is Jenny about?

5. How has Rockaway Beach changed in “Meanwhile, in Queens”?

6. How do the girls feel about their chosen fields of study in Duty?

7. How are the girls changed by their visits to the Motherland?

8. Why are the brothers in Our Brothers sent to prison?

9. How does “Meanwhile, in Queens” begin?

10. In Trish, how do many of the girls feel about their careers now that they are two years out of college?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Racism and prejudice is an important theme in Brown Girls. What are two examples of racism or other prejudice in this novel? Is this surprising to you? Why or why not? How does this affect you? How does this theme permeate the entire novel?

Essay Topic 2

What is reinforced regarding the parents of the brown girls through the events in Part Five? What is often the relationship between those in the United States and those back home? What does this say about immigrants to the U.S. today and the role of those new to the U.S.? What can those who are not new Americans learn from them?

Essay Topic 3

Queens has changed since the brown girls were little. How has it changed? What do the girls think about these changes? What do these changes reveal about the locals, as well as those in high positions in local and federal government?

(see the answer keys)

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