"Everyday Use" #3
Each of these events provide evidence of Dee trying to reject her African American heritage and in turn embrace her African heritage. She changes her name from Dee to Wangero. She is abandoning her mother's side of the family heritage by doing this. She wants to get rid of her connection to that side of her. Hakim's behavior shows that he is also trying to escape his heritage. He embraces a Muslim heritage instead. They both are running from what made them. Also, the "beef-cattle peoples down the road" present a similar resentment to the African American heritage of Dee. The mother criticizes these people by saying that they are "too busy". From how she explains them, it seems as if she find the way they live foreign because she said something about going "a mile and a half just to see the sight"(p178). She explains them as something she is not familiar with and doesn't exactly approve of. Hakim accepts"some of their doctrines" but not the "farming and raising cattle". This shows that the mother was trying to mock or make a rude comment. Dee is definitely straying from her mother's way of life and acceptance. Lastly, Dee has no real concern for the family heritage of the quilts. She cares about the rarity and antique heritage of it. She does not care about it being from her family.
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