Point of View

The majority of the stories in A Down Home Meal for These Difficult Times are narrated in past tense by first-person narrators, allowing the reader insight into the thoughts and feelings of these characters as they experience internal and external conflict. For instance, in “Mekonnen aka Mack aka Huey Freakin' Newton,” the narrator reflects on the time in his childhood when he arrived in the U.S. as an immigrant from Ethiopia and had to learn about the racism endemic to his new country. As Mekonnen struggles to balance socializing with his white classmates and the Black friends he makes through the African American All-Stars, he finds himself “juggling a highly compartmentalized life that matched the rhythms and patterns of segregation in '80s New York” (61). Poignantly, Mekonnen recalls being made to wait outside of a store by the proprietor while his white friends shopped...