"The Paterson Public Library" By Judith Ortiz Cofer

2a. "All during the school week I both anticipated and feared the long walk to the library because it took me through enemy territory." Pg. 130

"It would be many years before I learned the politics of race, before I internalized the awful reality of the struggle for territory that underscored the lives of blacks and Puerto Ricans in Paterson in my childhood." Pg. 132

b. Lorraine, the African American girl, and the narrator

c. The source of it is internal conflict, racism, and colorism. The narrator didn't suffer as much as Lorraine and the narrator was the perfect target to bully. It wasn't just being bullied for being literate, it was the issues that have been deep embedded within American Society.

4a. This chapter is about the Paterson Public Library and how it was the narrator's sanctuary.

b. "A library is my sanctuary, and I am always at home in one." Pg. 134

c. "They represent my spiritual life," (pg. 134). She finds solstice in the library. Diving into the books made her escape and go into another world. "I read and reread my favorite books until the character seemed like relatives or friends...." (pg. 133). She lived in another world and soon enough those fictional characters became family.

    5a.         Topics

• Racism
• Sanctuary
• Fear
• Jealousy
• anger
• Happiness
• Spirituality
• zealous 

b. "Each job given to a light-skinned Hispanic was one less job for a black man....." (pg. 132).

"It was the way I absorbed fantasy in those days that gave me the sense of inner freedom, a feeling of power and the ability to fly that is the main reward of the writer." (pg. 132).