Piecing Me Together

Piecing Me Together

by

Renée Watson

Teachers and parents! Our Teacher Edition on Piecing Me Together makes teaching easy.
A white teen who begins attending St. Francis with Jade. Like Jade, Sam stands out at St. Francis because she buses in from Northeast Portland, a neighborhood that many at St. Francis think of as a “polished ghetto” and as “depressing.” Sam and Jade bond quickly thanks to their shared bus ride and their realization that they’re both at St. Francis on a scholarship—both girls eat free lunch in the cafeteria. Sam lives with her grandparents, Mr. and Mrs. Franklin, because her mom effectively abandoned her, something that bothers her despite knowing that living with her grandparents is the best place to be. As the girls get closer, Sam shows herself to be a kind and devoted friend. Though she has to cancel on Jade’s birthday plans, she surprises Jade at school the next day by decorating Jade’s locker with balloons, allowing Jade to experience what it’s like to have a friend at St. Francis for the first time. Sam is also a great listener and she seems to spend much of her time with Jade listening. However, there are clues that Sam isn’t entirely okay and she needs someone to listen to her more often—she acts briefly jealous before Jade’s first Woman to Woman meeting and she implies that she wishes someone could tell that she needed a mentor. Things begin to go downhill in the girls’ friendship at the mall one day, when Sam tries to downplay a salesclerk’s racist treatment of Jade. To Jade, this feels like Sam telling her that her experiences aren’t real and don’t matter. Additionally, Sam is nominated to go on the Costa Rica service trip that Jade desperately wants to go on. Sam’s relative privilege means that she struggles to see how people give Jade different opportunities simply because Jade is black. Though it takes a few weeks for the girls to discuss openly, Sam eventually admits that she’s uncomfortable talking about race. She apologizes for not listening well and she agrees to listen and do better in the future.

Sam Quotes in Piecing Me Together

The Piecing Me Together quotes below are all either spoken by Sam or refer to Sam. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
Intersectionality, Identity, and Discrimination Theme Icon
).
Chapters 1 - 2 Quotes

And then so many of my classmates nodded, like they could all relate. I actually looked across the room at the only other black girl in the class, and she was raising her hand, saying, “She took my answer,” and so I knew we’d probably never make eye contact about anything. And I realized how different I am from everyone else at St. Francis. Not only because I’m black and almost everyone else is white, but because their mothers are the kind of people who hire housekeepers, and my mother is the kind of person who works as one.

Related Characters: Jade Butler (speaker), Sam, Mom
Page Number: 5
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapters 17 - 18 Quotes

“It makes me feel like I’m learning a secret code or something. I don’t know. It’s powerful.”

“Powerful? Really?”

“Yes, all language is. That’s what you used to tell me.”

Dad puts his fork down. Leans back in his chair. “Me? I told you that?”

“Yes, when I was little. When it was story time and I didn’t want to stop playing to go read and you would tell me I ought to take every chance I get to open a book because it was once illegal to teach a black person how to read,” I remind him.

Related Characters: Jade Butler (speaker), Dad (speaker), Sam, Maxine, Mrs. Parker
Page Number: 74
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 23 Quotes

And the other girl talks so bad about Northeast Portland, not knowing she is talking about Sam’s neighborhood. Not knowing you shouldn’t ever talk about a place like it’s unlivable when you know someone, somewhere lives there. She goes on and on about how dangerous it used to be, how the houses are small, how it’s supposed to be the new cool place, but in her opinion, “it’s just a polished ghetto.” She says, “God, I’d be so depressed if I lived there.”

Related Characters: Jade Butler (speaker), Sam, Kennedy/Glamour Girl, Josiah
Related Symbols: Portland
Page Number: 90
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 26 Quotes

She will be on the news every day because she is a white girl and white girls who go missing always make the news. [...] For months people will tell girls and women to be careful and walk in pairs, but no one will tell boys and men not to rape women, not to kidnap us and toss us into rivers. And it will be a tragedy only because Sam died in a place she didn’t really belong to. No one will speak of the black and Latino girls who die here, who are from here.

Related Characters: Jade Butler (speaker), Sam
Related Symbols: Portland
Page Number: 98
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 40 Quotes

I haven’t spent much time with Sam. Partly because I usually have something to do after school, but mostly because I don’t know how to be around her when I know she doesn’t think that salesclerk treated me wrong. I don’t even think she feels the tension between us. She has moved on and acts like everything is fine, but me? I’m stuck wondering if I can truly be friends with someone who doesn’t understand what I go through, how I feel.

Related Characters: Jade Butler (speaker), Sam, Lee Lee
Page Number: 151
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 54 Quotes

Sometimes I just want to be comfortable in this skin, this body. Want to cock my head back and laugh [...] and not be told I’m too rowdy, too ghetto. Sometimes I want to go to school, wearing my hair big like cumulous clouds without getting any special attention [...] At school I turn on a switch, make sure nothing about me is too black. All day I am on. And that’s why sometimes after school, I don’t want to talk to Sam or go to her house, because her house is a reminder of how black I am.

Related Characters: Jade Butler (speaker), Sam
Page Number: 201
Explanation and Analysis:

“I just want to be normal. I just want a teacher to look at me and think I’m worth a trip to Costa Rica. Not just that I need help but that I can help someone else.”

Related Characters: Jade Butler (speaker), Sam
Page Number: 205
Explanation and Analysis:
Get the entire Piecing Me Together LitChart as a printable PDF.
Piecing Me Together PDF

Sam Quotes in Piecing Me Together

The Piecing Me Together quotes below are all either spoken by Sam or refer to Sam. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
Intersectionality, Identity, and Discrimination Theme Icon
).
Chapters 1 - 2 Quotes

And then so many of my classmates nodded, like they could all relate. I actually looked across the room at the only other black girl in the class, and she was raising her hand, saying, “She took my answer,” and so I knew we’d probably never make eye contact about anything. And I realized how different I am from everyone else at St. Francis. Not only because I’m black and almost everyone else is white, but because their mothers are the kind of people who hire housekeepers, and my mother is the kind of person who works as one.

Related Characters: Jade Butler (speaker), Sam, Mom
Page Number: 5
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapters 17 - 18 Quotes

“It makes me feel like I’m learning a secret code or something. I don’t know. It’s powerful.”

“Powerful? Really?”

“Yes, all language is. That’s what you used to tell me.”

Dad puts his fork down. Leans back in his chair. “Me? I told you that?”

“Yes, when I was little. When it was story time and I didn’t want to stop playing to go read and you would tell me I ought to take every chance I get to open a book because it was once illegal to teach a black person how to read,” I remind him.

Related Characters: Jade Butler (speaker), Dad (speaker), Sam, Maxine, Mrs. Parker
Page Number: 74
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 23 Quotes

And the other girl talks so bad about Northeast Portland, not knowing she is talking about Sam’s neighborhood. Not knowing you shouldn’t ever talk about a place like it’s unlivable when you know someone, somewhere lives there. She goes on and on about how dangerous it used to be, how the houses are small, how it’s supposed to be the new cool place, but in her opinion, “it’s just a polished ghetto.” She says, “God, I’d be so depressed if I lived there.”

Related Characters: Jade Butler (speaker), Sam, Kennedy/Glamour Girl, Josiah
Related Symbols: Portland
Page Number: 90
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 26 Quotes

She will be on the news every day because she is a white girl and white girls who go missing always make the news. [...] For months people will tell girls and women to be careful and walk in pairs, but no one will tell boys and men not to rape women, not to kidnap us and toss us into rivers. And it will be a tragedy only because Sam died in a place she didn’t really belong to. No one will speak of the black and Latino girls who die here, who are from here.

Related Characters: Jade Butler (speaker), Sam
Related Symbols: Portland
Page Number: 98
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 40 Quotes

I haven’t spent much time with Sam. Partly because I usually have something to do after school, but mostly because I don’t know how to be around her when I know she doesn’t think that salesclerk treated me wrong. I don’t even think she feels the tension between us. She has moved on and acts like everything is fine, but me? I’m stuck wondering if I can truly be friends with someone who doesn’t understand what I go through, how I feel.

Related Characters: Jade Butler (speaker), Sam, Lee Lee
Page Number: 151
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 54 Quotes

Sometimes I just want to be comfortable in this skin, this body. Want to cock my head back and laugh [...] and not be told I’m too rowdy, too ghetto. Sometimes I want to go to school, wearing my hair big like cumulous clouds without getting any special attention [...] At school I turn on a switch, make sure nothing about me is too black. All day I am on. And that’s why sometimes after school, I don’t want to talk to Sam or go to her house, because her house is a reminder of how black I am.

Related Characters: Jade Butler (speaker), Sam
Page Number: 201
Explanation and Analysis:

“I just want to be normal. I just want a teacher to look at me and think I’m worth a trip to Costa Rica. Not just that I need help but that I can help someone else.”

Related Characters: Jade Butler (speaker), Sam
Page Number: 205
Explanation and Analysis: