The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store by James McBride

I have heard a lot about how good James McBride is, but this is first book I have read of McBride’s. It is a very well researched historical fiction. It’s a story about black people and Jewish immigrants in the 1930s. I have to say: I’m a fan now. It is the perfect book to let us think about our immigrant issue now.

Synopsis (spoilers!)

In Chicken Hill, Pottstown, Pennsylvania, there is a grocery store called Heaven & Earth Grocery Store, owned by a Jewish woman named Chona. Ms. Chona’s family came to Chicken Hill in the early 1900s and built the first shul for Jewish people in Chicken Hill with help from local black people. And they opened Heaven & Earth Grocery Store.

From that time, the Jewish population started growing in Chicken Hill.

Decades later, when most Jewish families moved to a better location of Pottstown, Ms. Chona refused to close the grocery store and move. Her grocery store was only grocery store in Chicken Hill.Her customers were mostly poor black people who couldn’t pay for groceries a lot of times. She gave them credit for buying groceries. She never made money from the grocery store but everyone in Chicken Hills loved Ms. Chona. When Ms. Chona was hospitalized, everybody prayed for her

One day, a black guy named Nate, who worked for Ms. Chona’s husband, asked them for a favor: to hide his nephew Dodo, who was deaf, from the State. They agreed to help. Ms. Chona didn’t have any children and she treated Dodo as her own. A lot of people knew about it but nobody said a thing. But somebody told the state about them. The state asked the only doctor of the town to do a medical check on the boy. The doctor was white and a KKK member. None of the residence of Chicken Hills ever went to him when they got sick. The doctor went to the store to ask for the boy. Ms. Chona had a severe seizure while they were arguing about the boy. Then the doctor took the chance to rape Ms. Chona. The boy came out from the hiding place attacked the doctor. The doctor went out the grocery store and called cops immediately. They got the boy and sent him to the special place for feeble minded people. Ms. Chona went into a coma and died.

Dodo suffered in the place but he made a friend. His friend died after he tried to rescue him when the bad guy was trying to rape him. Nate planned to rescue Dodo from the nuthouse since he was taken. Dodo was saved by his uncle with help of many people of Chicken Hills. And what happened in the grocery store that day slowly came to sunlight.

Reflection

The history of immigrants and racism is so ugly and it hurts to look at it. Black people’s contribution to the society is no less than the White people’s. Immigrants’ contribution to the society is no less than the citizens’. We are equal, no matter where we are. We are all live on this planet. We all have the same right to live. There is plenty of resources for everybody. It belongs to everybody on this planet, not some population. We teach our children to share when they are not one year old. But we, adults, refuse to share what we have. How could somebody fall asleep at night if their whole work is to making laws against certain population? Why can’t we live in harmony? There is no symphony if there is only one instrument playing.