A Place at the Table

“I’m not so sure about this ‘new best friend, old best friend’ deal. One best friend should be enough for a person. It’s enough for me.”

Elizabeth struggles with The Desire to Find Belonging. She has various identities and feels that they isolate her from her friends. Maddy’s character is Elizabeth’s safety net, one that Elizabeth is losing. The repetition of “enough” emphasizes Elizabeth’s emotion and desire to stay connected to Maddy.

“I know you’re not a little kid, but Baba and I never want to burden you with our problems.”

Mrs. Hameed wants Sara to focus on her future, while Sara wants to help her family when they face challenges. The family’s financial struggles and Mrs. Hameed’s resistance to Sara’s help are sources of tension throughout the novel.

“Watching Mom knit makes my eyes heavy. It’s so cozy and warm sitting next to her that I ease back into sleep.”

Elizabeth’s moment with her mother knitting foreshadows the comfort she will feel when she receives the gift her mother knits. The moment also foreshadows how Elizabeth will feel—comforted by familial presence when times are difficult.

“And last year when Rafey was sick with pneumonia, and Mama and I took him to the urgent care clinic, a white doctor told us he only treated Americans. PLU. We’d had to leave and go to the emergency room to get poor Rafey treated.”

The novel portrays the battle between internalized and externalized racism. Sara and Elizabeth indirectly learn the difference between microaggressions and macroaggressions and how both can be equally damaging.

“I should thank Sara for saving me from social isolation, or at least from being stuck with a pair of older kids who don’t want me in their kitchen. But all I can think about is what Maddy will say when she finds out who I’m cooking with.”

Elizabeth’s desire to find a sense of belonging among peers conflicts with her desire to maintain her friendship with Sara. Though she wants to do the right thing and treat Sara properly, she worries about how her behavior will make her friends feel, even though her friends are in the wrong.

“But her comment still cut, reminding me of the thorns I drew in my garden sketches. Raw, and undoubtedly painful because they’re attached to flowers. Barbed comments hurt more when they come from a neighbor or a friend.”

Sara expresses the difficulty of finding belonging when people act duplicitously. She feels the pain of betrayal more significantly when the insult comes from someone she thought cared about her in any capacity. The authors use a metaphor, where something is compared to something else without using “like” or “as.” In this case, flowers—which are aesthetically lovely—are akin to friends and neighbors. One associates all three with goodness. However, both flowers and friends/neighbors can barb you with hurt—hurt that is more intense due to its unexpectedness.

“Cooking for you kids, then cooking for other people’s kids. And now teaching cooking to a bunch of schoolkids. I never thought this would be my life when I was in college.”

Saadia Faruqi and Laura Shovan portray the positive and negative aspects of pursuing the American Dream. Though Mrs. Hameed loves to cook and chases her dream through cooking, she becomes disheartened at the amount of work that goes into pursuing a goal that appears to be unattainable.

“The girls in my cabin played kickball and learned dance routines, but I always sat on the sidelines. How could I play, when missing my family made me feel like there was a tree in my heart that had lost all its leaves?”

Elizabeth feels she belongs to her family, but the authors will demonstrate that family—while important—is not enough. While the Shainmarks understand Elizabeth to an extent, they cannot fully appreciate her day-to-day life. She needs friends with whom she connects daily. The authors use a metaphor to evoke Elizabeth’s internalized sense of family. In this case, her absent family is akin to a bare tree.

“Might as well put up a neon sign in our front yard saying: WE ARE DIFFERENT! WE ARE NOT TRUE AMERICANS! NO CANDY OR COSTUMES HERE. MOVE ON TO THE NEXT HOUSE!”

Sara feels discontent at being left out of the Halloween festivities, illustrating The Desire to Find Belonging. Sara feels excluded from her peers because she cannot participate in Halloween rituals, which she identifies as an essential part of American culture. The all caps and exclamations mimic the way a teenager may express themselves in real life.

“I wish Mom were more like Mrs. Hameed, owning her own business, leading a club at our school.”

Elizabeth compares how Mrs. Shainmark and Mrs. Hameed pursue the American dream. She believes her mother does not want to be thoroughly American, while she sees Mrs. Hameed as making a name for herself.

“Imagine having to learn a completely different version of history from your childhood. Here, it’s not the American War of Independence, but the Revolutionary War.”

Mrs. Hameed and Mrs. Shainmark share the experience of learning a new perspective on history and the world, much of which challenges what they learned growing up.

“My baba got his citizenship years ago. […] He’s like Mr. America. Every Election Day, I get a big lecture on what makes this country the best in the world.”

Citizenship allows one to participate in government and have a say in the direction the country takes. Mr. Hameed’s pride in being part of that process contrasts with many natural-born citizens, who take this right for granted.

“Before I know it, Elizabeth has pulled on the tunic over her T-shirt. She struts around the rack like a fashion model. I giggle. Rabia claps. If I had a cell phone, photos of this would be all over Instagram.”

Elizabeth’s growing bond with Sara and Rabia emphasizes the unifying power of food. What started as a cooking club has developed into a genuine friendship, one in which Elizabeth and Sara share pieces of themselves and their cultures. Moments like this foreshadow how Sara and Elizabeth will unify their cultures in making an ice cream dish for the International Festival.

“If we’re going to be real friends, not just cooking partners, that means we stick up for each other. If someone from school tells me to go back where I came from or asks if I live in a tent, you don’t get to stand there with your mouth hanging open like an old goat. Tell them to shut up.”

Sara challenges Elizabeth to be more assertive and act like a real friend, prompting Elizabeth’s development. Elizabeth will question how to support her non-white friends and talk to her white friends about their behavior.

“In any case, I can’t believe what she’s saying. My art is good enough to be showcased in front of the whole school? And a celebrity chef?”

Thus far, the authors have explored Mrs. Hameed and Mrs. Shainmark’s relationship with the American dream. Sara’s opportunity to have her art represent the entire school is the first time she has explicitly chased her own dream. This demonstrates what Sara believes are diverting priorities between the older and newer generations.

“My heart is thumping. I’ve been feeling so bad for myself lately, I never even realized how my leaving Iqra has affected Rabia.”

Sara’s assumptions about her friends at Iqra Academy are challenged when Rabia acknowledges that she does not have the connected friend group Sara assumes she does. The authors use this moment to demonstrate the ways assumptions hinder connection.

“I feel an excitement inside me. Famous. A few months ago, the thought of the entire school looking at my art would’ve made me hide under the bedcovers. Not anymore. I’m done being invisible.”

The authors illuminate how far Sara has come since the beginning of the novel. She still must face final tests to prove she has changed, but moments like these demonstrate that she is progressing and growing as a person. This kind of growth is typical of the bildungsroman, or coming-of-age narrative.

“Exactly. Pizza changes to suit the culture of the people eating it. It’s basically like America itself. We all come from different places, and then we settle here and try to be American, but still retain our distinct flavors.”

Sara uses a simile, where something is compared to something else using “like” or “as.” In this case, she compares pizza to America and its multicultural inhabitants. The Hameeds and the Shainmarks come to America to pursue better opportunities for themselves and their families. They maintain pieces of their identity that make them unique while finding places where they belong in the US.

“‘The thing is, she won’t listen to me. She says I should just stick to my charity work.’ Stephanie motions to the logo on her shirt. Underneath the cartoon, it says PROJECT SWEET PEAS. ‘If you don’t talk to her, it’s going to get worse.’”

Stephanie’s request that Elizabeth talk to Maddy draws attention to how multiple people must speak against racism to bring about change. At this point in the novel, Maddy uses food to divide rather than unite people, using Stephanie’s desire to help NICU babies against her.

“Your job is to study hard, get good grades, and one day get a good job that will make me proud. None of this cooking business for my daughter, okay? Be a doctor, or a teacher, or a journalist maybe. Your baba and I are working so much because we want you to have more opportunities than us.”

Mrs. Hameed’s statement highlights the conflicting nature of The Pursuit of the American Dream. Sara does not want to pursue STEM or what her parents call a “good job”; instead, she wants to pursue art. Mrs. Hameed forgets what it means to pursue your dream in working to ensure that Sara can chase hers.

“You give me cooking lessons. Jewish apple cake, charoset for Passover, challah—the recipe and the prayers. I want to learn. Will you teach me, Nadya?”

One of the ways food has unifying power is by providing a connecting thread through religious practices and traditions. Mrs. Shainmark recognizes the importance of understanding Jewish tradition through food and wants to learn the foods that will help reunite their divided family.

“I think about all I’ve learned over the last few weeks. What if it had been my mom in the principal’s office instead of Mrs. Hameed? Would Mrs. Kluck have let her anger boil over if our club leader was someone like my mom, who speaks perfect English? Who is white?”

Elizabeth begins to understand what Sara has been trying to tell her throughout the novel. Racism does not have to entail overt comments directed at people of color; it can also entail not standing up for people of color when comments are being made. Through Elizabeth’s realization, the authors drive home the importance of allyship in fighting racism.

“His goatee quivers. ‘Wow. The daughter of a lowly farmboy immigrant representing the entire school. Impressive.’”

Mr. Hameed is a foil to Mrs. Hameed relative to their ideas about Sara’s American dream, a foil being a character who illuminates another character through contrasting qualities. Mrs. Hameed’s comments show that she has big dreams for Sara and what Sara will accomplish. In contrast, Mr. Hameed sees Sara accomplishing big things within her interests as the win. He takes an interest in her art because he knows that’s what she dreams of chasing.