... She feels that her new name is more appropriate in representing herself. Dee fails to understand that her given name goes back several generations and is therefore more a part of her heritage than her newly adopted African name. Her new name might have sounded authentically African but it had no relationship to a person she knew, nor to a personal history that sustained her. Dee's confusion about her inheritance emerges in her attitude toward the quilts and other household items. To Dee, artifacts such as the benches or the quilts are strictly aesthetic objects. It never occurs to her that they are valuable symbols of her heritage. Her family created these objects because they could not afford to buy them. Her admiration for them seems to reflect a cultural trend toward valuing homemade objects, rather than a sincere interest in her heritage. The fact that she was offered the quilts ...

See this essay or coursework document in full right now