Henrietta Nistler's Journey

In order for Skloot to write this book about the events occurred decades ago, she had spent years with the Lacks family to focus on their story as the base of the novel. Her journey with Deborah, Henrietta’s daughter, creates credibility to the story as she is telling it off as a primary source. Skloot introduces herself as a high school student, who “grew up in a safe, quiet, middle-class neighborhood…” (Skloot, 2010, pg7). Ethos is established as she informs the reader the environment she grew up in was different from the one Henrietta did.

Deborah learns from Lawrence about Elsie, her other sister who institutionalized. She does not know much about Elsie or her own mother, Henrietta, thus showing how very little is communicated among members of the Lacks’ family. Skloot visits with one of Henrietta’s cousins, Cliff, in order to learn more about her. She visits where Henrietta was buried and the house she grew up in. Skloot narrates the story of Henrietta’s great-great-grandmother, Mourning, and her husband George.

3. Also in Chapter 6 - How well do you think the Lacks family understood what had been done with Henrietta’s

Henrietta Lacks is not a common household name, yet in the scientific and medical world it has become one of the most important and talked names of the century. Up until the time that this book was written, very few people knew of Henrietta Lacks and how her cells contributed to modern science, but Rebecca Skloot aimed to change this. Eventually Skloot was able to reach Henrietta’s remaining family and through them she was able to tell the story of not only the importance of the HeLa cells but also Henrietta’s life.

The Kenyan feminist and environmental activist, Wangari Maathai, explores the legacy of colonialism and oppression in her native country through her moving 2006 memoir, Unbowed. Maathai explains that over the course of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, Africa experienced a massive influx of white settlers. In an effort to solidify control over recently acquired colonies, many European powers had encouraged large numbers of their ethnically white citizens to make a new home on the African continent. As a result, thousands of native Africans were displaced. Maathai’s ancestors, the Kikuyu and Maasai peoples were among them. The majority of these forced dislocations took

Henrietta was an African American woman who grew up in Clover, Virginia and was raised by her grandfather, Tommy Lacks because her mother died after giving birth to her 10th child. Henrietta worked with her cousin in the family’s tobacco farm, went to school until 6th grade, and had her first child with Day Lacks (her cousin) at the age of 14, and they got married when she was 20 years old and he was 25. After giving birth to her 5th child, Deborah, Henrietta goes

The things that make one human are convoluted. That’s why in a world where everyone strives for simplicity, people are often eluded by the nature of humanity. They often overlook certain aspects of a person in favor of simplicity, reducing them to a single idea which fails to encompass all the facets of an individual, which is what happens to the Henrietta Lacks’ family in Rebecca Skloots recounting of their story called The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks. However, this has its ramifications. Even though many feel it is simpler to dismiss the messier details of humanity in favor of cold hard facts, Skloot shows that major consequences arrive when these personal elements are overlooked.

What if you had the ability to save several lives through something only you had ? Wouldn’t you like to be told and given proper credit? Well unfortunately that is not case for Henrietta Lacks. Henrietta held a powerful and significant key which has helped as a cure for many things and is still being used till this day . I choose to write about Henrietta due to the fact that she is one of histories and science unsung hero’s.

Life. Life is a powerful word that is used in many situations and still make sense. In this case, life is used to tell the story of a woman’s life. The first chapter of the book paints an exceptionally vivid image of Henrietta running into Johns Hopkins Hospital on a rainy day in January of nineteen fifty-one. The second chapter steps back from Henrietta’s initial exam to nineteen twenty-one, the year Henrietta was born. The chapters in this section combine elements from Henrietta’s life, the entirely separate life of

The Henrietta who kept her cancer a secret for as long as she possibly could and only told Sadie, Margaret, and Day that she was sick because she did not want to worry anyone (Skloot 65). The Henrietta who treasured and unconditionally loved her children, more specifically the quality of life of her children. Henrietta and her daughter, Elsie's, relationship reveals more about Henrietta than any scientific journal ever could. Instead of putting Elsie in Crownsville State Hospital, formerly known as the Hospital for the Negro Insane, and walking away forever, ridding herself of the "burden" of a child like Elsie, Henrietta continued to make time for her by visiting her once a week (Skloot 45). I wholeheartedly believe that when Henrietta died, the greatest treasure she was worried about was her children. Rightfully so, though, as her children ended up facing the horrid abuse of Ethel and Galen when Day decided to no longer raise his own children (Skloot

The consideration of Henrietta Lacks as an abstraction instead of an individual becomes the source of a multitude

Due to previous experiences with reporters and white people in general, the children of Henrietta became skeptical of anybody inquiring about their mother and her cells (Skloot, 2010, p. 49). Therefore, when Ms. Skloot enters the lives of the Lacks family; it was a challenge. Before she could even talk to the family, Ms. Skloot had to obtain the trust of Dr. Roland Pattillo, a professor of gynecology at Morehouse School of Medicine in Atlanta, GA (Skloot, 2010, p. 49). It took three days for Rebecca Skloot to convince Dr. Pattillo that she can be trusted to tell Henrietta’s story (Skloot, 2010, p.

In the first chapter of “Christianity Rediscovered” by Vincent J. Donovan he is introducing us to the idea that missionaries now have a poor reputation due to their history. He says “History has offered the opportunity to deflect and distort the meaning of missionary work in every age”. For a long time a missionary was a person spreading the word of God and after years of doing so we have diminished many different beliefs, practices, cultures and history. At the time it was thought to be the right thing, to spread out and share the gospel to help people find meaning and acceptance. In today’s age a missionary is a lot of different things, in many cases it is more focused on the health and physical wellbeing of the people. Many people still share the gospel through missionary work, but in other cases it is more of a material aid. Donovan introduces the book as a voyage of discovery he wants us to put our normal beliefs aside to see his perspective of living a missionaries life and struggling with the fact of if you are helping or hurting.

Henrietta Marie was a slave ship that was believed to be the largest source of tangible objects. The slave ship was approximately 60 feet tall and could fit roughly 200 slaves. Henrietta Marie sank in the early in the year of 1700, and it was later discovered in 1973 by Mel Fisher’s Treasure Salvors, Inc. Henrietta Marie is extremely significance because it is the only slave trading ship that has been discovered. Without discovering Henrietta Marie, scientist and historians would not be able have the knowledge of the cargo carried on the ships, who sailed the slaves, and as well the treacherous conditions Africans had to undergo on the voyages. Henrietta Marie is more than just a slave trading ship, it is another puzzle piece to the puzzle

Immaculée Ilibagiza grew up in “paradise” as she describes, in the tiny country of Rwanda, located in Central Africa. She was brought up with in a middle-class home which consisted of her three siblings, all male, and both her parents. In their household, education and religion where two values of great importance. Ilibagiza’s parents were both educators, and brought up their children a strong catholic faith, and belief in the power of God, and compassion for others. During her childhood, she never experienced racism because of her ethnic group, she always felt safe, and as though she was like the others. However, she learned the division between the two groups while at school, when she was asked if she was a Tutsi or a Hutus, and she did not know how to respond.