Tanisha
by Julia Puia
1. Race: Mixed
1.1. Tanisha also struggles with her race quite a bit in the novel. One of the main male characters, Tyrone, calls her "caramel cutie" and this is something that bothers her a lot. She is of mixed race while a lot of her peers are African- American. This is something she is often self-conscious about.
1.1.1. She says about her two best friends, "They know the only difference between my color and theirs is that the slave master who owned my family raped my great-great-grandma instead of theirs. And like my dad says, that ain't nothing to celebrate or be stuck up about." (Grimes, 2002).
2. Gender: Female
2.1. Tanisha struggles with the way she is viewed by others, especially males. A main theme throughout this book was the way females are seen by others versus the way they view themselves. Tanisha struggles with this much like the other females in the book, but in a different way. She is notorious throughout the school for being extremely beautiful, but she is upset because no one ever acknowledges how smart she is.
2.1.1. At one point in the book she says "I'm better off with friends like Diondra and Janelle who know I'm more than what I look like. They know I've got a brain, and I know how to use it." (Grimes, 2002).