Question Analysis

Question Analysis

In her essay, “American History,” she admits that an indecorous fire escape was her favorite spot on which to sit and read her library books in the summer, when she was living in the hideous high-rise called El Building, in Paterson, New Jersey (Cofer 1997). In this story about her rejection by a potential beau's Southern mom because of her brown skin color and low social circumstances, Cofer records her loneliness well.

She describes how the fire escape was located over a house occupied by an old Jewish couple, and how, over the years, she “had become a part ...