For Ragtime my journey starts as soon as the Harlem ensemble runs onto the stage. There I am lively and I enjoy my life to the fullest, dancing and laughing with my friends in the club. That club, I imagine to be the one place where I as an African-American do not have to worry about the struggles and hardships that I face on a daily bases that don’t seem to bother me as much as they should. I tell myself that’s the way it’s always been and people are good at heart, people will change. I genuinely believe that things will get better.
As the show goes on I begin to realize that maybe not everyone is as intrinsically good as I believed them to be. When Coalhouse’s car gets destroyed just because he wanted to drive down a certain road, no one did anything to help Coalhouse, not even one of ‘our people’ would help Coalhouse get the justice he deserves the right way. And I was upset for Coalhouse I sympathized with him. And then when Sarah is killed, I feel such sorrow because of the fact that I would never be able to dance and laugh and have fun with Sarah in the club again.; I lost my friend. I also feel for Coalhouse because I know that he loved Sarah with all of his heart and to lose her would kill him.
And then Coalhouse starts all this unneccessary violence and setting cities on fire. And I am angry, I get more annd more bitter because I believe that none of this wouldn’t have happen if those fireman, or even the clerks did what they were supposed to do and helped all people. And then when Coalhouse dies I am left wishing that I still believed that all people could be good.
Between that I am a Haitian immigrant, a young girl of 15 years, who is traveling alone with her big sister. Or mother had sent us alone on the boat because she couldn’t afford to leave behind our father who is very sick. When we get to America, I am awed by how large everything seems to be and at the same time terrified because of that very reason.
