Quote 5

I came a long way to get here but when you think about it real hard you will see that old Starletta came even farther ... And all this time I thought I had the hardest row to hoe.

Ellen closes the novel in Chapter 15 with these final lines. Starletta has come to stay over her house, and, after a long battle with adversity, she is awakened by the sudden awareness that Starletta has fought battles of her own. After a long friendship with Starletta, Ellen has finally cast aside the racist prejudices that have been taught to her by her community and her family. Once she sets aside her racial biases, Ellen realizes that all along it has been Starletta who has endured the most hardship and adversity and not herself, as she had always thought. Although Ellen has suffered abuse, neglect, and ongoing displacement, Starletta has suffered racial prejudice, which is something that will take years and years to remove or change. When Starletta develops a crush on a white boy at school, Ellen thinks how sad it is that she will never be able to have him and only because of the color of her skin. This is when Ellen begins to realize that Starletta will never be able to overcome her suffering as easily as Ellen has overcome her own.

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