Summary

The short story “La Negra Blanca” is centered around a girl named Sarah. Sarah works as a strip dancer and goes by Sierra as her stage name. At the club, her defining feature is her ass – although her features suggest that she is completely white, she knows that she has her mother to thank for her voluptuous shape. To the public, she identifies as white because she understands that in Baltimore, “it is easier to be a white girl with a black girl’s ass than to be a black girl who looks white.” (62) Sarah despises her occupation – the oily pole that she works on every night fills her with contempt, and she can only stand the smell of larger bills. To pay for her education at Johns Hopkins, she has no choice but to work at the club because it pays...