English 12 - Born a Crime Interactive Project

By Kaeden Dhanji

The literary elements and symbolism in this book are shown many times. The Volkswagon car Trevor’s mum purchased from Abel and that’s how he slowly came into Trevor's life eventually becoming his step-father. Leading to the altercation at the end of the book where Abel shoots Trevor’s mum almost killing her. This quote represents Trevor's perspective on the event “I have to imagine Andrew’s pain was far greater than mine. My mom had been shot by a man I despised if anything. I felt vindicated, id has been right about Abel all along.” Page 276. Another symbol was Mcdonald's and the golden arches, Trevor didn’t ever feel like he fit in at all so when an American food chain came into town for him he felt like he was living the American dream, he felt like he fit in by eating out with “ The Cheese Boys”. Here is a quote that expresses the way Trevor felt about Mcdonald's. “With money, I experienced freedom on a whole new level. I went to McDonald’s. People in America don’t understand, but when an American Chain, opens in a Third World country people go crazy.” Page 133 PDF When Trevor went through his heartbreaks he had a lot of love and personal growth within these chapters in his life with Adiche and Babiki. After learning that Babiki was moving to the States because her father had received a job opportunity and later Bibikis friend telling Trevor that Babiki liked him, Trevor was startled and he never would have thought that. A quote relating to this was “I started flashing back through all the memories of all the times id been with Babiki, meeting at her flat, hanging out with her friends, introducing, her to Abel. Did I talk to her then? No. Did it talk to her Then? No.” Page 177. Trevor talks about his identity a lot saying that he feels like he doesn’t ever fit in in groups since he grew up as a mixed child during the apartheid in South Africa there were little to no mixed children. A quote that supports this is " In Soweto, I was the only white kid in a black township. In Eden Park, I was the only mixed kid in a colored area Page 149. I believe these were some important and key moments of symbolism.

Trevor Noah made connections with himself and the apartheid in South Africa that he had to go through to intersect the novel. Trevor Noah helped me understand the context of his book due to a lot of personal experiences like his mother being shot made me understand that even in bad times there's always hope and I feel like Trevor's mom gave him a sense of hope making jokes after incident trying to cheer him up. When Trevor went to jail he learned to not judge people by their appearance or the language they speak, the discrimination he faced against police made me understand an experience he had to deal with during the apartheid that he had to grow through growing up in South Africa a quote that expresses Trevors feeling and experience threw racism is “Don’t Fight the system, Mock the System” Page 252. Due to the factor of Trevor being a mixed human, he faced a lot of struggles growing up in South Africa during the apartheid, he learned to not fight the system but mock it instead. Some of the experiences he had to this day may have made him become the person he is today a comedian. It changed his sense of identity due to him having to finally learn and accept who he is and not want to change for anyone even though most of his life he never felt like he fit in anywhere. When we look at the importance of a person’s perspective it opens a lot of diversity on a topic due to being able to learn about their personal experiences, in this case, Trevor Noah did it threw a book about his growing up in South Africa during the apartheid era. Trevor did a great job at explaining perspective, before I read this book I didn’t know about an apartheid. Trevor being able to explain the apartheid the way he did made me understand what It was about and gave me a way better understanding than going onto a news article or website and reading about it. I feel like hearing a story through a person's emotional and moral perspective is very important. Even though Trevor experienced lots of trouble during his childhood it structured him into the person he is today, even though he went through hard times he always kept going forward.

This spoken word called “Prom” By Hasan Minhaj https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RuYLxlOm_sg and the book Born A Crime by Trevor Noah helped me understand how literature and narrative convey. These two pieces touched on a significant topic of racism, both were colored children growing up in a place where diversity in culture was not so common, Hasan being a brown Muslim and Trevor being a half African American half White mixed. They both faced racism Hasan faced it with the prom date that chose not to go with him and take pictures with another guy that was her race, even with her parents saying to Hasan that “We don’t know if you would be a good fit for us”. Even at the start of this spoken word Hasan was treated poorly when he went up to the girl he liked and said “Nicole I LOVE YOU, you’re the color of poop”. They both had a sense of not being able to fit in anywhere. The connection between these two stories tells a lot about people judging off of their appearance, even with Hasan did not growing up in the apartheid he still had to deal with judgment and racism due to the color of his skin. Something about both Trevor and Hasan is that even when they faced this discrimination their message was the same, to have hope and not give up and be sad, Hasan coped with this by going to play Mario after being told that his date was stolen by the captain of the water polo team, and Trevor always having a positive mindset to push forward and not dwell on the past. That is how I feel racism and the messages of these two stories connected and projected a strong message.