I bought a forty-eight-star American flag, from the 1940s. The flag would remind MDash that his adoptive nation is never finished building itself - that good citizens have a place somewhere in her fruited plain just as more stars can fit in the blue field above those red and white stripes.
-- Narrator ("Three Exhausting Weeks")

Importance: MDash is from Sub-Saharan Africa and becomes a naturalized United States citizen in “Three Exhausting Weeks.” His three friends are there to support him and become emotional for him. However, MDash is not a central character in any of the stories that feature this group of friends. Instead, this quote is more applicable to Assan’s journey to America in “Go See Costas.” In that short story, Bulgarian-born Assan finds work on a ship out of a port city, fleeing communism. He manages to sneak his friend to Philadelphia and continues on to New York City himself. Assan is...