How we cite our quotes: (Chapter.Paragraph)
Quote #4
I guess my mother was homesick for Virginia, where no one talked Dutch, and there was no smell of gas or oil, and there weren't as many black people around. (1.53)
What is it about Curaçao that Phillip's mother dislikes, according to him?
Quote #5
I thought about leaving the island, and it saddened me. I loved the old fort, and the schooners, the Ruyterkade market with the noisy chickens and squealing pigs, the black people shouting; I loved the koenoekoe with its giant cactus; the divi-divi trees, their odd branches all on the leeward side of the trunk; the beautiful sandy beach at Westpunt. And I'd miss Henrik van Boven. (2.11)
Unlike his mother, Phillip loves the landmarks and life on the island of Curaçao. Why are their perspectives so different?
Quote #6
Once, our bodies touched. We both drew back, but I drew back faster. In Virginia, I knew they'd always lived in their sections of town, and us in ours. A few times, I'd gone down through the shacks of colored town with my father. They sold spicy crabs in one shack, I remember.
I saw them mostly in the summer, down by the river, fishing or swimming naked, but I didn't really know any of them. And in Willemstad, I didn't know them very well either. (4.4-5)
As Phillip pulls away from Timothy on the raft, his experience with black people in both Virginia and the West Indies seems very similar. In both places, blacks and white tend to live separately.