Searching For Someone To Care

             Alicia Erian’s novel The Towelhead tells the story of the troubles of a thirteen year old Arab-American girl Jasira.  The title “Towelhead” refers to her father’s Arabian background. Although he no longer wore a turban, her classmates and neighbours still made fun of her and as a result, they nicknamed her “Towelhead”.  Her parents were divorced, and for most of her life, she had lived with her mother because she hated her father.  However, her mother’s boyfriend Barry began to like Jasira, and even began to shave Jasira’s pubic hair for Jasira without her mother knowing.  When she finally discovered that her boyfriend had been taking advantage of her daughter, she not only blamed her daughter for “seducing” him, but even forced Jasira to leave and go live with her father.   As a result, Jasira’s troubles began after she was sent to Houston, Texas to live with her father.  There, she faces problems not only at school but also at home with her father and her neighbours.

As the protagonist the novel, Jasira’s goal is to find someone who truly appreciates her for who she is so that she can have a purpose in her life.  However, because of her desire, she admired the wrong kind of people- perverts.  Although Jasira is only thirteen, her puberty had already begun and her body is much further developed than most girls at her age. In fact, her body is often even more attractive than a full grown woman.  As a result, multiple men became sexually attracted to her.  First, it was her mother’s boyfriend Barry.  Secondly, after Jasira moved to Texus, her neighbour Mr. Vuoso began sexually harassing her without anyone knowing; however, Jasira, despite knowing that he loved her body and not her, actually fell in love with Mr. Vuoso because she believed that he appreciated her, and because he made her “feel good” in certain parts of her body.

I believe that I am unable to relate to Jasira because although I was a Chinese boy that moved into a Caucasian society at a young age, I have never had to face racism from fellow classmates or from my neighbours.  Also, not only are my parents not divorced, they both love me so I do not need to be constantly search for somebody to appreciate me for who I am.  However, the novel is plausible because I know that many children with divorced parents have to face many problems because they often feel that their parents no longer love them (such as in Jasira’s case, where she has to find other people aside from her parents to love her).  In addition, since, racism occurred extremely often in the United States of America until a couple decades ago, it is extremely probable that there were children like Jasira who had to face racism at school.