Quey's Identity

                 Quey’s chapter in Homegoing stuck out to me because we see someone who is not enslaved struggling with their identity. Quey, the son of Effia and James, is biracial and also secretly homosexual. We see the beginning of his identity struggle when his friend Cudjo asks about his race. When Quey is asked if he is white, Quey denies it and says he is just like Cudjo. After comparing Quey’s skin color to his own, Cudjo tells Quey that they are definitely not like each other. Yaa Gyasi writes, “He knew that he was one of the half-caste children of the Castle, and, like the other half-caste children, he could not fully claim either half of himself, neither his father’s whiteness nor his mother’s blackness” (56). The mixed sometimes struggles when it comes to their racial identity. The one-drop rule plays into this struggle because some believe that if you have any drop of black blood in you then you are to identify as black. I cannot personally speak on this but from looking from the outside in, it’s as if the mixed race has to choose one race to identify as. Also, if they do decide to identify as one race, like Quey did, they are denied because they do not look the same. Quey’s identity struggle is something that can be seen in our society today.

            Quey’s relationship with Cudjo is very interesting. When reading this chapter, I was very confused as to where their relationship was going and what their interactions meant. By the end of the chapter, we see that Quey is also confused about his feelings for Cudjo and what that means for him. Like Cudjo, Quey eventually gets married and nothing comes from their relationship. A parallel can be made between then and now when James sends Quey away after witnessing them “wrestle”. I have heard of instances when parents who do not support their homosexual sons or daughters send them away or put them in therapy in order to fix what they see as a problem. It’s as though they feel like separation from whoever they were with will change everything. Quey’s identity struggle is different from the identity struggle that the enslaved people are dealing with. The enslaved men and women are being stripped of their identity and turned into a commodity. Although Quey is not dealing with this same struggle, it is important to note the parallels in his story to those in our current society.