and muffled cheers for his son tell another story. In another instance, with a "halting,

polite English" (103), he tries to confront the parent of the white kid who has bullied

Henry. But instead of demanding an apology and remedies to protect his son from a

further mishap, he ends up excusing the boy's behavior by sheepishly explaining, "'My

son ... is no good for friends'" (104). The timidity he shows in his interaction with white

neighbors clearly indicates that he has adopted a coping mechanism typically associated

with social underdogs. It also testifies to the existence of an impenetrable discriminatory

barrier separating those who make home in America but cannot make themselves at home

in it due to their different racial and cultural background, from those others whose

freedom and rights associated with their citizenship make them immune from the

exclusionary politics of home.

 Psychic trauma, if broadly defined, subsumes under its heading different types of

life-altering, overwhelming incidents that rupture the continuity of life and deprive one of

a basic sense of safety and security. Painfully aware of the divisive line between "us" and

"them" and the constrictive life it imposes upon his parents, who go to great lengths not

to overstep the carefully maintained boundaries, Henry thinks about his mother who

"would gladly ruin a birthday cake rather than bearing the tiniest shames" of borrowing

any missing ingredient. And he wonders,


 ... What's she afraid of what could be so bad that we had to be that careful of
 what people thought of us, as if we ought to mince delicately about in pained feet
 through our immaculate neighborhood, we silent partners of the bordering WASPs
 and Jews, never rubbing them except with a smile, as if everything with us were
 always all right, in our great sham of propriety. That we believed in anything
 American, in impressing Americans, in making money, polishing apples in the
 dead of night, perfectly pressed pants, perfect credit, being perfect, shooting black
 people, watching our stores and offices bum down to the ground. (52)