Veronica Chambers is the author of the memoir Mama’s Girl. She narrates her own story starting at a very young
age when she lived in New York with her mom, dad and brother Malcolm. At this
time she is trying really hard to make her mom proud but she doesn’t seem to be
paying attention to her accomplishments in school or anything that has to do
with her. She is more worried about her brother who has not applied himself in
school. On the other hand, he dad has a lousy job, another woman, and on top of
that he beats her mother.
Veronica’s dad and Malcolm move out shortly afterwards. Veronica then has
a stepfather who treats her mother fairly but who doesn’t have a good
relationship with her. At this time, Veronica is pursuing her dreams of going
to college and one thing she realizes is that her mother never pushed herself
to be greater because she was afraid of the dominant white race even though she
lived through the civil rights movement. Veronica, she wants to be successful
like any other white person and she knows she has the potential.
Veronica left
her mother who fed her during 14 long years and gave he shelter to move in with
her dad because of the awful relationship with her stepfather. Veronica has to
fight for her rights in this new house; her dad’s new wife is extremely cruel
to her and mean to the point she’s not allowed to have her groceries in the
same refrigerator or eat in the same table. She gets beat up for no reason and her dad is ashamed of
her appearance, because he never took her shopping for new clothes or to the
beauty salon for a day. Neither did her mom.
Her desire to succeed is even greater than the pain she has and the
little voice that tells her to give up. One day, she gets the worst beating
because her guy friend took her shopping for her birthday. Her dad thought she
was doing a sexual favor and beats her, leaving her bleeding in the street. She
threatens to press charges but instead of doing that she made him pay for her tuition
for early college so she could leave.
Now that she is in college she feels more independent, free, and safe. She
talks to her mom everyday and realizes she is the only person that has really
given her what she’s needed and even though she wanted more attention, she
knows really how much her mom has done and how she’s the only thing she has
left.
Veronica is pushing herself harder everyday doing internships in
magazines during the summer and working her way up to success alone. During the
whole book she is making reference to the big gap and difference between the
white ruling class and the black lower class. Her mom is an example of a person
who lived all her life with her head down as a secretary for white people.
After college Veronica starts living with her aunt and with all her work
she finally breaks down to her mother about how she always wished she noticed
how hard she studied
to be good and successful in life and she never seemed to notice. But her mom tells
her how she’s always been proud.
After this, Veronica has a new way of seeing life, she has infinite
possibilities and thanks to her vision she becomes editor in the New York
Times. She never let her dad stop her, her stepmother, her skin tone, or even
her mom. She realizes how different she is from her brother, now he is living
in the streets doing drugs and lost his path. They both had the same mother but
they made completely different choices in life.
She is the woman she always dreamed of being, but overall she expresses
the way she feels like she has to make up to her mom for her brother’s failures
and her father’s beating. She tries to do this by giving her the things she
never had before. The reader can really feel how thankful she is to her mom for
being so strong. She could’ve left the moment Veronica’s dad started beating
her but she didn’t for her children.
This memoir is a coming of age novel. Veronica has a very rough childhood
where she is looking for answers and experience away from her broken home. She
has to be responsible almost by force and she starts to take her own risks by
working and studying to buy her own food since 14. She has a low self-esteem
but her knowledge and studies help her realize how much she is really worth.
Even though this book takes place in the 1980’s and 90’s mostly, she still
feels that pressure to fit in, especially during college where there are only
five black kids in her class.
I believe that the title Mama’s Girl has of course a lot to do with the
story but mostly the illustration of a little black girl conveys more than the
eye meets. My interpretation of this is that even though Veronica had a very
rough childhood and teenage years, without her mother’s way of being and her
sacrifices she wouldn’t be who she is now, but that it doesn’t mean she’ll ever
stop being her Mama’s Girl. Even though she changed a lot from when she was a
naive little girl, she tries to stay true, throughout the whole story, to her
mother and herself thanking her mother for making her who she is today.
This memoir is about Veronica Chambers, a former editor of The New York Times Magazine and Premiere. She wants the reader to know
through the novel that it wasn’t easy to become the person she is now, but with
hard work and perseveration your dreams will soon become reality.
From the moment Veronica started being physically abused at home and
ignored by her mother she started to focus more and more in school, one of the
first things she realized is that if she does really good in school she can
move out faster. Later she realizes that staying strong is important because
giving up for her was not an option. While growing up she wonders why her
mother never pushed herself to be promoted in her job and she realizes a lot of
people in the black community including her mother still feel different or that
they don’t have the same chances to succeed as the white community. Veronica
proves this to be wrong when she excels as a young black woman with a
privileged job as an editor that many white people yearn for.
I think the life of Veronica really made me appreciate my life and my
privileges. She never gave up and I realize sometimes I feel like the world is
just crumbling down at my feet and I want to stop and just not do it anymore but
the truth is my problems seem insignificant compared to what Veronica had to
face. I think that she is an excellent example of overcoming the difficulties
in life anyone might face, and for her they were cruel and harsh but the reward
was gratifying.
“In my mother’s arms that night, I found a safe space. I was a child
again and being a child didn’t make me feel weak or afraid like it did when I
was a girl, helpless to protect my mother or myself. In mother’s arms, I found
healing” (page 168) I think this line shows how she finally feels safe in her
mom’s arms something she hadn’t felt when she was a little girl because she saw
her mother get beat up and she felt helpless because she couldn’t protect her.
She also says she finds healing in her mother’s arms because she never felt she
loved her until that moment and now that she knows it she feels safe and
fearless.
