How It Feels To Be Colored Me Summary

Zora Neale Hurston’s work“ How It Feels to Be Colored Me” where she portrayed her experiences as an African American girl living in American during the 20th century. In the piece of work, she stated how she feels about being part of the Black community. How segregation, discrimination, and, racism affected her life. As differ from others authors during the Harlem Renaissance, she begins by telling that she wasn't aware she belonged to a racial group in the world. She didn't understand the separation and segregation between people of different races. As contrast from other authors that were aware of the situation and were struggling to fight with racial discrimination, during that time. Zora was quiet out of the blue, her work and personality

Paragraph: Published in during the 1900s, at a time when being colored was considered unbeneficial, “How It Feels to Be Colored Me” depicts Hurston’s audacious (for the time) pride in being an African-American woman. In order to emphasize her thesis, she employs pathos and figurative

Hurston, on the other hand, lived in a town where only blacks lived until she was thirteen years old. Therefore, she only knew the “black” self. There was no second identity to contend with. She states that “white people differed from colored to me only in that they rode through town and never lived there.”2 She does not feel anger when she is discriminated against. She only wonders how anyone can not want to be in her company. She “has no separate feeling about being an American citizen and colored” (Hurston 1712).

Zora Neale Hurston is unequivocally open about her race and identity in “How It Feels to Be Colored Me.” As Hurston shares her life story, the reader is exposed to Hurston’s self-realization journey about how she “became colored.” Hurston utilizes her autobiographical short story as a vehicle to describe the “very day she became colored.” Race is particularly vital in Zora Neale Hurston’s essay, “How it Feels to Be Colored Me” as she deals with the social construct of race, racism, and sustaining one’s cultural identity.

In Zora Neale Hurston’s essay “How It Feels To Be Colored Me”, her racial identity varies based on her location. Towards the beginning of her life when Zora was in her own community she could be a lighthearted, carefree spirit. However, when she was forced to leave her community, Zora’s identity became linked to her race. In this essay I will demonstrate how Zora’s blackness is both a sanctuary and completely worthless.

Hurston stays who she is, no matter what people might think of her. In her non-fiction text she especially manages to convey this by using Humor, that creates Ethos within the text. The first words of “How It Feels to Be Colored Me” include “I am the only Negro in the Unites States whose grandfather on the mother’s side was not an Indian chief”, in which Hurston makes fun of all the Afro-Americans at the time who were trying to claim Native American heritage. This start into the text creates a lighthearted atmosphere, in which the author acknowledges her less than perfect living circumstances, but showing that she will not crumple beneath them. Before being sent to a racially mixed boarding school in Jacksonville, Zora Hurston lived in a town in Florida. She always welcomed white tourists looking at their town and states that she was “the first welcome-to-our state Floridian”, hoping “the Miami Chamber of Commerce will please take notice”. Of course, at the time, it was impossible to involve the government in a personal wit, so the author uses the sarcastic information to show the reader that she would live her life no matter what the social norms might have been in the 1920s. In the second half of her text, Hurston includes the Irony “How can any deny themselves the pleasure of my company? It’s beyond me”, showing that she knows that some people would view her as being socially unacceptable, however Hurston does not care, as long as she can stay true to her own character. Through the humorous tone created, the reader acknowledges that Hurston is light hearted and sympathizes with her

"How it Feels to be Colored Me" was written in 1928. Zora, growing up in an all-black town, began to take note of the differences between blacks and whites at about the age of thirteen. The only white people she was exposed to were those passing through her town of Eatonville, Florida, many times going to or coming from Orlando. The primary focus of "How it Feels to be Colored Me" is the relationship and differences between blacks and whites.

How It Feels to be Colored Me is an essay by Zora Neale Hurston published in the World Tomorrow on May 1928. In the essay she describes her first experience with racism. The purpose of the piece is to show self-confidents and pride in her identity. She shows the reader the positives of embracing your identity and not letting society affect your true selves. Stating “I’m not ashamed to be colored.” (pg.416), meaning that no matter what anyone saying about her being black, she still has pride in herself.

Even though both Hurston and Hughes grew up around the same time period, they had very different ideals regarding their experience as African American’s as well as a different voice used within their works to convey their ideals. Hurston in her 1928 essay “How it Feels to be Colored Me” describes her childhood and coming of age with a delightful zest that cannot be contained. Although the essay does contain some dark moments such as when she describes her experience with her friend at the jazz club and the sudden realization of the racial difference between her and the other patrons, for the most part the work exudes her keen sense of dignity despite the popular opinion of the masses during that period. Lines in her essay such as “But I am not tragically colored. There is no great sorrow dammed up in my soul, nor lurking behind my eyes…I do not belong to the sobbing school of Negrohood who hold that nature somehow has given them a lowdown dirty deal and whose feelings are all hurt about it” (Abcarian, Klotz, and Cohen 812) beautifully express her sense of self dignity and refusal to give in to the negative energies surrounding her race. Despite the many hardships that the color of her skin caused her she was proud and determined to never let that stand in her way of

Zora Neale Hurston is the speaker of this article, who is a colored girl growing up in a small Negro town in Florida named Eatonville. When she moved to Jacksonville, she realized what it was actually like being a colored girl in the outside world. Nevertheless, she was really proud of her ethnicity and disregarded all criticism.

One of Hurston’s stories, How it Feels to Be Colored Me, reflects the author’s perspective of the colored race (specifically herself). According to the story, when Hurston reached the age of thirteen, she truly “became colored” (1040). The protagonist was raised in Eatonville, Florida, which was mainly inhabited by the colored race. She noted no difference between herself and the white community except that they never lived in her hometown. Nevertheless, upon leaving Eatonville, the protagonist began losing her identity as “Zora,” instead, she was recognized as only being “a little colored girl” (1041). Hurston’s nickname “Zora” represents her individuality and significance; whereas, the name “a little colored girl” was created by a white society to belittle her race and gender (1041).

She was not able to differentiate the two until she moved to Jacksonville. Hurston states, “ I was not Zora of Orange County anymore. I was now a little colored girl”(Hurston 417). Now being outside her town of Eatonville, she began to experience what it was like to be colored. When Hurston moved to Jacksonville she noticed that not only where the skin color different, but also everything else about Jacksonville.

Zora Neale Hurston was so proud to be from the black community that she mentioned it in her writings; she even changed it to her birthplace. Eatonville, Florida, had a massive impact on Zora’s life. It shaped her life and writing style. Hurston explains: "Anyway, the force from somewhere in Space which commands you to write in the first place, gives you no choice. You take up the pen when you are told, and write what is commanded. There is no agony like bearing an untold story inside you."

2, pp. 358). When people reminded her that she is the granddaughter of slaves, it doesn’t sadden her. She acknowledges that slavery is a part of the past and “slavery is the price I paid for civilization” (Hurston, vol. 2, pp. 359). Zora now saw herself differently amongst a sea of white peoples; prior to now she was unaware of any differences. However, even feeling colored she finds herself; the negative doesn’t define her. She doesn’t see the difference she just sees the contrast of color. She notices a contract while at a jazz club with a white male nearby. She becomes consumed by the music from the band and in her head she is in the South African jungle doing a deer dance hunting for prey. The orchestra finishes the song and the white male sitting near only acknowledges it was good music. The song hadn’t touched him like it had her. He only heard the song that she could feel in her bones and that is when she notices the contrast between them. “He is so pale with his whiteness then and I am so colored” (Hurston, vol.2, pp. 359).

Hurston prides herself on who she is because of her background. Her identity of being a black woman in a world