After Tupac and D Foster

Fiction | Novel | Middle Grade | Published in 2008

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Summary

Background

Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Prologue-Part 1, Chapter 2

Part 1, Chapters 3-9

Part 2, Chapters 10-13

Part 2, Chapters 14-18

Part 2, Chapters 19-26

Character Analysis

Themes

Symbols & Motifs

Important Quotes

Essay Topics

Tools

Beta

Discussion Questions

Symbols & Motifs

Double Dutch

Content Warning: This section contains discussions of race, racism, racial identity, anti-gay bias, gun violence and fatalities, wrongful conviction/imprisonment, and the foster system.

Double Dutch is one of the most popular pastimes of the girls in the novel, and it functions as a symbol of the three girls’ friendship. The activity is especially fitting for a trio of friends, because it requires two people to turn the rope while one jumps. The kind of coordination and rhythm required to successfully jump Double Dutch and to switch jumpers in and out is a symbol of how close the narrator, Neeka, and D are. If one of them is absent, or if one makes a false step or skips a beat, the whole activity falls apart. The first time the girls meet D, Neeka tells her to come back the next time with a rope. They begin to jump Double Dutch and that allows them to connect without knowing very much about each other yet.

The three girls are not the only people jumping Double Dutch; it is a popular pastime for a lot of girls. They occasionally try to pass on their wisdom by teaching younger girls how to jump, but they are not coordinated enough to get it right. When D leaves with her mother, she calls the narrator, and the narrator says the “double-handed sisters” in their neighborhood can’t turn the rope as well as D did (143). They have fine-tuned their Double Dutch jumping so well that D really can’t be replaced. Double Dutch-style jump roping gets its name from the Dutch immigrants who settled New York City (New Amsterdam, at the time). It remains a popular activity in urban areas and particularly in Black communities. Double Dutch was associated with hip-hop culture in the 1980s and 1990s, which is the time period portrayed in After Tupac and D Foster, as well as the author’s own childhood. More than any other pastime, Double Dutch represents Black girlhood and friendship in 1990s New York.

Shoes

One of the first things that the narrator notices about D when they first meet is the shoes that she’s wearing. She makes a comment about them and later feels bad when she realizes that D is in foster care and has more important concerns than what her shoes look like. When D comes to see them the next time, the narrator notices that she is wearing different shoes, and assumes it was because she was embarrassed about the narrator’s comment from the other day. This realization makes the narrator feel bad for calling attention to D’s shoes and shows that she is perceptive and sensitive. The narrator and Neeka know that D loves to “roam” around the city; at night she takes buses, subways, and walks around to just observe how other people live. For D, shoes are important because she is always on the move, whether she is going from one foster home to another or roaming around the city by herself.

Repeated mentions of the characters’ shoes become a motif in that it connects to D’s penchant for roaming as well as Neeka and the narrator’s journeys into adulthood. When Neeka and the narrator are shopping for new school clothes with their mothers, the narrator’s mother dislikes how high the heel is on the shoes the narrator tries on and tells her to find a flatter pair. In this chapter, the mothers seem a little sad about how quickly the girls are growing up, and the comment about the shoes shows the narrator’s mother’s resistance to her daughter changing and growing up.

Tupac Shakur

As the title of the novel suggests, the rapper Tupac looms large as an icon for the characters in the book and as a symbol of the experiences of many young Black males in the United States. The characters themselves identify with him and his music because his life experiences represent such a large swath of people who have dealt with the same things—family trouble, police brutality, unfair trials, incarceration, and shootings. When he is shot and imprisoned, the narrator and her neighbors feel as if it were their family member; indeed, many of their actual family members have been shot and/or imprisoned as well.

Throughout the novel, the treatment of Tupac, but also his ability to make art out of his circumstances and speak for people who have no voice, touches the lives of the three girls as they become teenagers. He inspires them to look for their Big Purpose and to build a family with whomever they can. Because of his influence, martyr-like death, and the theories that he may still be alive somewhere, Tupac has gained the status of a mythological figure in American pop culture.