Confronting Stereotypes: Maus in Crown Heights

Abstract

Spiegelman's Maus, we have been reading about Vladek and Anja's experience of the escalating persecution of the Jews in Poland, and have just referred to my father's experiences as a Jewish student in Hitler's Germany. Audible whispers pass around the circle of seats. She is, could've told you all that! She is not, can't be! Why can't be a Jew? ask Rose, a thirty-nine-year-old woman from Guyana, who feels a special closeness to me after having shared her struggles as a single mother of a special needs child during several office hours. Because you're down to earth, she answers. Because you-havefeelings! A few students giggle with embarrassment, while others rush in, trying to reassure me. Rose is right, you not like them. You talk with us.... We laugh in here. You not all formal. right. And you don't look like no Jew either. I just assumed you knew was Jewish, tell them, trying to catch my breath, because of my last name. That's why never mentioned it. Anyway, I ask the class, what does a Jew look What does a Jew act like?