Content Warning: This section of the guide includes discussion of racism, alcoholism, and abuse.

“Every summer the media come to my neighborhood, and every fall they come to my school. Never for good. But there is something good to see here. And not just all the new pretty houses and shops that line Jackson Avenue now. There is something good here. And not just because more White families have moved to this side of town. There’s always been something good here. People just have to open their minds to see it.”

The opening chapter establishes the theme of The Complex Effects of Gentrification and the protagonist and narrator’s perspective. Maya is deeply proud of her neighborhood, as evidenced by the refrain, “there is something good to see here.” She is keenly aware that the influx of white families has displaced Black residents because her best friend, Essence, is forced to move.

“For the past four years, there has been constant construction on just about every block in my neighborhood. They’ve painted and planted and made beauty out of decaying dreams. Block after block, strangers kept coming to Jackson Avenue, kept coming and changing and remaking and adding on to and taking away from.”

Watson uses active verbs to convey the complexity of gentrification’s effects. The newcomers are both “adding on and taking away from” Maya’s neighborhood. The fact that the verbs are in the present continuous tense reiterates the fact that there is no sign of these changes slowing down. This excerpt helps to explain why the protagonist and her twin have differing views on the changes in their community at the start of the story. While Nikki focuses on the positive effects, such as the beauty and safety she sees in a place that once had “decaying dreams,” Maya worries about how these changes impact the community’s identity.