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Camilla Gibb's Sweetness In The Belly

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Intro Sweetness in the Belly by Camilla Gibb tells us the story of Lilly, a white woman who was raised in Morocco and who was eventually forced to flee Africa from the Red Terror genocides. It takes place in the 70s and 80s, giving us her perspectives both in Ethiopia, where she is sent to live after she turns sixteen, as well as England, where she lives as a refugee. Despite the decades in which these events transpire, Sweetness in the Belly is still a relevant frame of which to compare modern struggles that come with of racism, immigration, and living in a poor country. p1 One of the reasons why Sweetness in the Belly is relevant today is its portrayal of racism. Lilly is a white woman in Ethiopia for half of the book, and a Muslim woman living in England in the other. In Ethiopia, Lilly is regarded as a farenji, a foreigner, who don't have a very good reputation and who are few and far between, leaving Lilly alone in breaking racial barriers and …show more content…

Despite moving around with her parents a lot as a child, it leaves her with no easy task when coming to England. Her struggles with assimilating to British culture are evident as she holds true to her original traditions. This is less true of her friend Amina, however: "For all her conviction that her children should know where they come from, she seems increasingly less interested in maintaining the rituals of the past" (p 140). These struggles are still true for immigrants today, which is exceptionally important considering how multicultural Canada is and the number of immigrants who come here each year. Although Lilly already knows English, language barriers are also a very real issue for some immigrants, and although she doesn't struggle in England with language, she does when she first gets to Harar. "She [Nouria] shrugged, not understanding, so I pointed at my chest, I pointed to the minaret in the sky above us, I raised my hands as if to bow down in prayer" (p

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