Prelude to “American Girl”

By Vicki Hill Brooks 

Presented by Omni-U Virtual University 

I first became interested in writing after taking a business writing class in college and another as a training course at AT&T. I like being able to communicate clearly and concisely while getting my point across and it helped me in my work.

I often heard little vignettes in my mind.  When I later learned that characters often spoke to writers, I began to think that maybe these were characters talking to me, telling me their stories, and that maybe I should write them down. But, my greatest motivation was wanting to capture our family history in a creative and interesting way. 

I had always admired how proficient a writer my Aunt Jean is (which was both a motivator and a deterrent). However, during my spiritual growth work, I was told that we often recognize characteristics in others that we share with them. Although I had no evidence- other than my business  writing- that I could be a good writer, I've always believed that capabilities consist of both talent and skills. I knew I was capable of learning the skills and that if I had any talent it would reveal itself. Being the goal-oriented person that I am, that became a driver for me. In terms of fulfillment, I thought it would provide a means of expression that I don't otherwise have. In studying writing, I realized that a blank page was a place where I could be totally authentic without judgement.

Finally, yes, I am a creative. I didn’t realize this until I was in my forties because it usually comes out in things I make. I’d never applied it to the idea of writing until my Aunt Jean taught me that I had a voice and that I should hold on to it. The classes also helped me to find my voice and taught me a lot about myself.

In 1980, I ventured out of the safe boundaries of my community, on the Southside of Chicago, to explore foreign soil for the first time. I embarked on a “Girls Trip” though we weren’t calling it that then. Little did I know that my fun trip to The Bahamas and Jamaica would trigger- if not an identity crisis- an existential experience.

Growing up in the civil rights era as a “Negro” child (because that’s what we were called then) race superseded everything, including  gender. Attending a very diverse grammar school exposed me to different ethnic groups early in life: that's the Chinese girl, the Italian boy, the Irish girl, the Mexican boy. Me?  I was the Black girl- no nationality required.

I suppose somewhere in my subconscious mind, I knew that I was an American. After all, I recited the “Pledge of Allegiance” every school day. Yet, it was never how I identified myself. Everything I saw that was identified as American seemed to have nothing to do with me.

However, while we were in the Bahamas, we met young men and, as young women do, shared a great time with them. It was a less fearful time, and we were “armed” with the perceived invulnerability of youth. The next day, when we passed the front desk, we were stopped and told  that three young men had come there asking for the ‘American girls’. We looked at each other, quizzically, and wondered who they were talking about. Then, it dawned on us that they were talking about us! Us? We were the American girls. It was a stunning realization. One that was still with me 40+ years later.

Back in 1982, my husband, Rodney, told me about an experience he had with two Black women he sat with in London: Odessa Elliot, from Cape Town, and Jennifer Higgenbottom, from London and what an interesting trio they made complete with their variant accents.  But, of course to an onlooker, they just all looked Black.  When I took my first poetry class last year, these stories inspired this poem:

American Girl

By Vicki Hill Brooks 

“We are looking for the three American girls,” they said, when they came to take us to where the coconuts drop. 

American girls, American girls, American girls.

Who were they talking about, these American girls? Ohhh yeah, the diaspora.

Island girl, British girl, American girl. All with Africa in their DNA.

I thought I was a Black girl. a Black girl, a Black woman.

I wasn't always a Black girl. I was born a Negro child when being called black might cause a fight. 

I was a Black teenager when it became in vogue to say it loud and proud like the man with the capes and the fancy footwork.

I was an Afro-American adult for a while, until somebody decided that an Afro was a hairdo, at which time I became an African American woman,

But, when I look in the mirror a Black woman still stares back at me.

I heard that I'm phenomenal, phenomenal, phenomenal, and that my hips have magical power.

Heard I can rule the world if I let my hair be.

I am strong. I can hold the world on my shoulders or is the myth of the strong Black woman just that?

 If I put the emphasis on Black do you feel my strength?

I held up the Black man while he built America, built America, built America.

I live in a community. Is it my community, or is it yours that you let me use until you get tired of commuting and want it back?

We can live there together, maybe, maybe, maybe, as long as I don't forget and wear a hoodie.

Does that woman lying next to the 44th President look like me?

American girl. American girl, American girl. Me.