Write one complete essay comparing and contrasting Goines's Black Girl Lost and Ansa's Baby in the Family in terms of a course objective, one or more parts of a course objective, or some combination of objectives or parts.

When I came into this class, I had experience with a lot of Asian American Literature. I noticed that a lot of the same themes are rampant in both Asian and African American cultures. However, I was not prepared to dive into the diverse lives of the characters residing in both of these books. In Black Girl Lost, the story is much more bleak than that of Baby of the Family. Even though these books are diverse in nature there are ways that they are similar too. However, the strong sense class as a theme in these stories, and that is my focus. The people’s classes in these stories are described by the way that they are dressed, the way that the family is structured, the way the families relate to each other, and the neighborhoods that the main characters live in.

At the beginning of Black Girl Lost, Goines describes Sandra’s clothing as extremely poor. Even as a child of eight, her clothes are not proper for the weather. Her coat is described as "thin". Later, she goes to school, and she feels that the other students know how poor she is by the way that she is dressed. She does not want to be noticed in school, so she acts dumber than she is to prevent the teacher from calling on her. However, later in the story, Sandra gets a job with Sammie, and she starts buying better clothes and saving money. This boosts her confidence and elevates her status in school. After all, status is especially important in a school atmosphere, and when Sandra starts paying attention to herself, she starts to shine—she gains respect.

The use of clothing as a means to describe the class system is also used in Baby of the Family. Lena finds a friend that is definitely of a lower stratum than herself. She begins to enjoy a relationship with Sarah. Even her Grandmama thought that Sarah "looked […] like a little piece of street trash". Infact, Lena’s grandmother’s first instinct was to give her a bath. Sarah’s house was just a shack. On the other hand, Lena’s house has six bedrooms, and formal rooms for music, dining, and sewing. Lena’s house is much better insolated than that of Sarah. Every time that Sarah came over to Lena’s house the grandmother fed her first. Even Lena’s mother "told her not to accept dinner invitations because Sarah’s family had enough trouble feeding their own members without having guests’ mouth to as well." (89). Sarah did not attend school, and Lena did. Also, the descriptions of Lena’s clothes are emphasized constantly through out the story. She is provided with above par party dresses and standard clothes for school. Her grandmother and mother are always making her beautiful clothes, and they take Lena to the beauty salon on a regular basis. This shows that they have some money.

In addition to Lena’ having a big home, her parents own their own business. This business is very busy and is described as making a lot of money. Her father is always throwing down money to the mother in brown paper bags. The business provides in a way that Sandra could only get from turning to drugs and to Chink. The business is more legitimate in the case of Lena’s family. Sandra lives in the ghetto, and she feels that the only way that she can get out is by selling drugs. The neighborhoods show the class difference.

The Sarah character and the character of Sandra are very similar. In the descriptions of the two girls, the books Black Girl Lost and Baby of the Family are similar. The girls belong to the poor class. Both of the girls have poor clothing and live in environments that are not the most suitable conditions. However, the reader learns that Sandra picks herself up through her education, and the reader realizes that Sarah does not attend school. But the only way out of this class is to assimilate into the world and get a proper education. Both girls will have to climb up the ladder to make it out of the shacks. Also, in both cases, the girls have extended families that take the lead. For a time, Sammie guides Sandra into an assimilation path and possibly to a higher class. In the case of Sarah, Lena’s family takes her in until her mother moves her away.

The books differ in the way that the families are structured. In the case of Lena, the family is a nuclear family that dines together, prays together, and loves. However, in the case of Sandra there is a complete melt down of the family. There is no father, and the mother is a perpetual drunk. There is no sense of love between the mother and the daughter in Black Girl Lost: Lena is simply ignored. In fact, Sandy is so pathetic that Sandra takes over the role of caretaker. The family in Baby of the Family loves each other, and they take care of each other. There is a typical sense of hierarchical order with in this family. This type of structure in Baby of the Family is typical of a middle class family. Whereas in Black Girl Lost, this structural meltdown is typical in a poverty stricken environment and clearly shows the divisions of classes in these books.

The statuses of the women in the books are different. In Black Girl Lost, even though it is by choice, Sandra loses her voice to Chink. She lets him make all the decisions in the relationship that will clearly affect her. In the end, Chink becomes Sandra’s family, and he becomes her man; therefore, Sandra takes a lower status to that of Chink. However, in the case of Lena’s mother, "helps out" with the store, and that gives the father and mother more of a fifty-fifty status. There is not a sense of a subordinate class between the man and the woman in Baby of The Family.

In the cases of both of these books, the concept of classes raises two interesting observations: to assimilate or resist or is there a voice. In the case of Baby of the Family, there has to be some kind of assimilation on the part of the family in order to get the things that they wanted. They also made the choice to climb the ladder of success. However, in Black Girl Lost, there is a vacillation between the two observations. Sandra could never make up her mind, which pack to follow, and many times her voice is taken or given away. The issues that are raised in the distinction of the classes prove that there is discrimination and that one can lose their voice if allowed. However, everyone has a choice to make. [ES]