LilaQuintero Weaver, Darkroom: a memoir in black and white.Tuscaloosa,Alabama: U of Alabama P, 2010. 264 pp. ISBN: 978-0817357146
Darkroom: A Memoir in Black and White is an arresting and moving personal story about childhood, race, and identity in the American South, rendered in stunning illustrations by the author, Lila Quintero Weaver. In 1961, when Lila was five, she and her family emigrated from Buenos Aires, Argentina, to Marion, Alabama, in the heart of Alabama's. No wonder you activities are, reading will be always needed. It is not only to fulfil the duties that you need to finish in deadline time. Reading will encourage your mind and thoughts. Of course, reading will greatly develop your experiences about everything. Reading darkroom a memoir in black and white is also a way as one of the collective books that gives many advantages.
LilaQuintero Weaver’s first graphic novel, Darkroom: a memoir in black and white,presents a personal narrative of childhood and adolescence as anArgentinean-American in the deeply segregated town of Marion, Alabama duringthe 1960s and 1970s. Darkroom begins when Lila immigrates to the UnitedStates at the age of five and ends, rather abruptly, with a condensed narrativeof her life after high school and her return to Argentina, forty-four years afterher departure. The coming-of-age story, dramatically set during the civilrights movement, directly links the protagonist’s personal experiences ofimmigration with the escalating national crisis, attempting to focalize thistense historical period from a child’s curious but not fully cognizantperspective. The adult writer/illustrator, in contrast, maintains a more matureunderstanding of the racial tensions in which she grewup. In this way, through both content (as a youngimmigrant’s tale that depicts societal change in addition to personaldevelopment) and form (as a graphic text), Darkroom remains a uniqueexample of the bildungsroman.
Thegraphic novel traces the young protagonist’s odyssey as she copes withdiscrimination, struggles to find a place within movements for racial justice,and gradually comes to terms with her identity as a Spanish-speaking immigrant.At times the author’s deliberate use of a child-like perspective and naïvetéread as such. Weaver’s overt, even exaggerated, metaphors and visual symbolismof “black and white” or “dark and light,” especially when connected to thedevelopment of photographic images and the setting of her father’s darkroom inthe context of a deeply segregated society, risk bordering on cliché.Given that a child’s perspective propels thenarrative, however, these somewhat simplistic renderings might also be read asinnocent if not tender and endearing.
Inother instances, the author/illustrator more successfully takes advantage of thegraphic medium to denote racial difference and condemn prejudice. Whendepicting racist white characters, Weaver frequently utilizes thin gray contouroutline with sparse facial detail and little or no infill shading. Extremeclose-ups exaggerate harsh facial expressions when white townspeople utterracist sentiments, e.g. “Nigras? You invited Nigras?!” (97) and “...the coons're gonna march down to the jail” (146).Weaver's visual style not only highlights the speakers’ whiteness but alsovisually connotes the severity and two-dimensionality of their thinking. Incontrast, Weaver consistently depicts African American characters with morecomplex shading and frequently includes their hands (or feet) with expressivegestures within the frame, adding more personality and depth to these images.
Inthe citations above, colloquial speech further underscores the uneducated biasesof the speakers; in other words, text and image function together to depict ignorantbigotry. Likewise, the author/illustrator exploits the balance between text andimage to portray segregation and the narrow-mindedness of white townsfolk. Inone example, the text fits subtly around a gathering of African Americanchurch-goers, allowing the characters’ visual physical presence as a communityand their individual facial expressions to dominate the frame; on the followingpage Weaver depicts a group of white church-goers with text in large speechbubbles that span outside of the frame, activating the edges of the image anddrawing attention to their words rather than the characters,: “It’s those outside agitators! They’ve gotthe nigras all stirred up!” “This isserious! If they get the vote, they’re gonna have the majority, and they’lltake over!” (138-140). This technique effectivelyhighlights collective prejudices and fears.
Incontrast, by portraying herself as a child immigrant with an educatedmiddle-class background, and as a light-skinned Latina whose identity slips inand out of whiteness, Weaver positions herself as a subjective outsider whosenon-whiteness allows her to see racial injustice. Yet non-blackness, inclusionin white society, and childhood naïveté protect her from gaining a moreintimate or experiential understanding of racism. Weaver takes advantage ofthis position and, in her role as adult storyteller, guides the reader throughher gradual realization of racial segregation and violence. In this way, thegraphic novel becomes a teaching tool, capitalizing upon a youth’s perspectiveand providing a gentle introduction into violent racial conflict. Theincorporation of sketched re-creations of historical documents such astextbooks, literacy tests for voter suppression, and newspaper articles enablesa persuasive blending of childhood memories and adult comprehension. Such adual narrative perspective allows a certain naïveté regarding racialdiscrimination and further permits the protagonist to confront instances inwhich she was complicit with racism and segregation (200, 247).
Weavertraces the protagonist’s recollection, reflection, and gradual realization ofracism by overtly repeating certain compositions or scenes, and, occasionally,by repeating text. Throughout Darkroom, imagery and narrativestructure—intricately linked –mimic the circularity of memory. For example, thesnapshot of her last view of Argentina (introduced at the text’s onset) appearsagain at the end of the graphic novel when Weaver returns to her native country(30, 249). Similarly, Weaver illustrates a close-up of young Lila’s eyes aftershe witnesses segregation in a local health clinic; thissame frame appears again much later when she begins to understand thepersistence and pervasiveness of racism in her classroom, church, andneighborhood (68, 183). Visual and textual circularity combined with focusedattention upon the protagonist’s eyes not only provide insight into Lila’s evolvingcomprehension but also invite readers to acknowledge their own gaze and “see”the South for themselves.
Inshort, with Darkroom: a memoir in black and white Lila Quintero Weavernostalgically represents the experience of racial difference through childhoodmemories. At times the graphic novel suffers from its attempt to convergenumerous if not competing narratives: an immigrant’s tale, a coming-of-agestory, and a chronicle of the civil rights era. Weaver’s personal memoir as aLatina and an immigrant slowly dissolves and ultimately disappears into thehistorical narrative of the civil rights movement until, in the end, the protagonist decides to literally return to herroots. Although this may disappoint readers specifically interested in theinteraction between Lila's latinidadand the stark segregation of the South, such a representation may be true toWeaver's personal experience. The graphic memoir gives the impression that asshe assimilated into white American culture, civil rights struggles werecritical to personal growth and a sense of self. For these reasons, Darkroomwill appeal to students and scholars of the bildungsroman,narratives of the Jim Crow era, and Latina literature.Weaver’s visual text will be of particular interest to those engaged in graphicrepresentations of racial and cultural identity.
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Darkroom A Memoir In Black And White
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