The Fire This Time

As a finale to the “Legacy” section of the analogy, Jesmyn Ward’s essay examines the past through the lens of genetic heritage. Her search asks what it means to be black in America, as well as what it means to be mixed-race. She and her immediate family members, all mixed-race, were deemed black and experienced generations of racial discrimination in the American South. Ward writes of Mississippi, “The one-drop rule is real here. Eunice wasn’t allowed on the beaches of the Gulf Coast or Lake Pontchartrain until the early seventies” (90). The one-drop rule defines a person with even the smallest percentage of African ancestry as black. This rule, used in some states’ lawbooks, privileges those with entirely European backgrounds and implicitly sanctions discrimination against those with ancestors of color. Ward’s grandaunt Eunice, living in the segregated Jim Crow era, was forbidden from white beaches due to her mixed race.

People assign certain ethnic and racial labels to the members of Ward’s family, but none quite describes their unique background. In California, Ward’s father was assumed to be Latino or Samoan. At first glance, Ward assumed her grandaunt was white, whereas others might have called her Creole (although, as Ward notes, white people altered that term to erase people of color). The South labeled Ward’s family a black family, and that is how she thinks of herself. After learning the specifics of her background, she wonders whether she could still claim a place in the black community. She realizes she can, celebrating her African heritage as well as the other aspects of her identity. She does not have to live according to a black/white binary; rather, she embraces the multiplicity of her heritage. 

For example, Ward’s hair is a symbol, “a mane that bears the strongest imprint of my African ancestors, [...] so that I walked the streets with a ten-inch halo that repelled the rain and spoke of Africa to everyone who saw it” (94). In the midst of her confusion, her hair grounds her in who she is, “my essential self: a self that understands the world through the prism of being a black American […]” (94). This glory in her hair recalls Jeffers’s imagined scene between Phillis Wheatley and her husband John Peters, celebrating their African roots together. It also recalls Ward’s father’s hair, the “black, silky hair that curled into Coke-bottle waves at the ends” (89) and speaks to his mix of Native American, European, and African ancestry. Ward’s father finds joy in learning the results of his genetic testing so he can embrace his Choctaw heritage anew. 

Ward also points out that the blend of cultures makes new culture. Particularly in the United States, cultures clash, blend, meld, and form new genres of music, types of food, and many other traditions. Ward finds beauty in how her mixed heritage reflects the mix of cultures at her birthplace on the Gulf Coast of Mississippi. Her personal cultural expressions range from studying Spanish to writing about black characters to attending Native American rituals, honoring all parts of her background in turn.