True Identity Exposed In Michelle Cliff's No Telephone To Heaven

Michelle Cliff's No telephone to Heaven offers a complex story of the difficulties one must go through when migrating to a new country with different societal standards and norms. Clare Savage, the protagonist, embarks on a journey to America with her family in search of a new life. Originally from Jamaica, Clare witnesses the racial and discriminative conduct that some American's have towards blacks. Furthermore, Clare also sees the adjustments and complete attitude change that some people try to make to fit in with the American society such as her father, Boy Savage. Clare constantly has this back and forth struggle psychologically between who her true identity is. Clare's constant battle to find out her true identity arises from the fact that her parents are completely contradictory in terms of their race and class. Kitty

Savage, Clare's mother, represents more of her Jamaican side and could be considered as part of the working class. Meanwhile, Boy is more light skinned compared to Kitty and represents a white, upperclassmen who tries to conform to America's customs. Ultimately, due to her parent's conflicting identities and observing how they either conform or oppose America's customs, Clare struggles to discover who she is and whether or not she should identify herself with either her father or mother's side or perhaps a hybrid of the two. 
Upon arriving in America, Clare witnesses the racial discrimination that is present in and how both her mother and father respond in such scenarios which attests to her constant struggle of trying to identify and shape her own character.

Clare and her family are on a trip to New York. Suddenly, Clare see a sign on an abandoned NAACP office saying, "A MAN WAS LYNCHED YESTERDAY." Clare didn't know what that meant and asked her father. Boy responded that, "it is a form of punishment for wickedness" (Cliff 55) Boy's explanation for this violent and unjust form of punishment shows that he considers himself a white privileged man who belongs in America because he sees no wrong doing in the act of lynching. Furthermore, he refers to lynching as a punishment. A punishment is usually given to those who have committed a wrong doing; however, in most lynches the wrong doing was simply that those individuals were black. What is the wrong doing in being a different skin tone than others? Boy also refers to the victims of lynches as "wicked." Boy clearly has no respect for the minority such as the blacks and doesn’t empathize for the way they are

mistreated. 
 On the other hand, Kitty doesn’t agree with Boy's explanation of a lynching and "sucked her teeth, but offered her daughter nothing more" (Cliff 55). Kitty sucks her teeth to hold herself back from saying something. Kitty, who has no shame in her Jamaican roots, strongly disagrees with her own husband and wants to give her input in the situation; however, she sucks her teeth in to hold back her words because she knows Boy is the dominant one in the family because he is white or rather considers himself as white.