Middlesex Key Passage Response

“Until we came to Baker & Inglis my friends and I had always felt completely American. But now the Bracelets’ upturned noses suggested that there was another American to which we could never gain admittance. All of a sudden America wasn’t about hamburgers and hot rods anymore. It was about the Mayflower and Plymouth Rock” (298).

When Cal is enrolled into the all girls school, Baker & Inglis, which has a high student body population of children from wealthy and well-established families, she feels out of place. Although Cal and both of her parents have lived in America for their whole life and consider themselves American, Cal is labeled as “ethnic” by her peers at Baker & Inglis. Being labeled “ethnic”, Cal is at the bottom of the school’s social hierarchy and is treated in such a way that, even at a young age, she is able to understand that she will “never gain admittance” into her peers’ social circles. This comes as surprise to Cal as the society she believes she is a part of suddenly rejects her. The excerpt above carries a surprised tone using phrases such as “all of a sudden” thereby clearly highlighting the surprise Cal feels. 

The idea of society rejecting and alienating members who are deeply part of the population is not limited to Cal and her family in Middlesex. Similar to Cal, African Americans in Detroit are labeled as outsiders and placed at the bottom of the social hierarchy despite being a major part of the community. They too understand that, although they have been part of America for just as long as some of the wealthy families, they will “never gain admittance” to the “other America”. This alienation of African American results in the 1967 race riots, which Cal witnesses, adding to her understanding of the exclusiveness of America.

In addition to race, sex is also a basis of alienation that Cal must face. Being born both male and female Cal has been an outsider from puberty to adulthood. Cal’s alienation because of sex may be seen as even more severe than because of her race since while Cal is cast off as low level being “ethnic”, she experience full withdraw and awkward tension from the people that know her “secret”.

The alienation Cal experiences while in America may explain her satisfaction with living in Germany. Being an American in Germany, Cal is an official outsider to the society. Being an official outsider may be comforting to Cal because while she will still “never gain admission” to German society, she will not be isolated by those who she considers to be her own kind.

Eugenides, Jeffrey. Middlesex. New York: Picador, 2002. Print.