Narrator

The narrator is a first person plural entity, representative of a group of brown immigrant girls growing up in Queens, New York. Throughout the novel, the narrator employs first person plural pronouns like "we," "us," and "our," in order to encompass the experience of a wide range of identities. Although these identities are united by the singular narrative voice, the girls inside the proverbial brown girl collective come from a range of distinct racial, cultural, ethnic, and familial backgrounds.

No matter how many changes the girls undergo throughout the novel, the narrator retains the same narrative identity. Therefore, even after the girls attend different schools, move to new places, make new friends, and marry different partners, the narrator is sure to describe all of their experiences. In the latter sections of the novel, for example, the narrator increasingly uses the phrase "some of us" in a variety of...