Drops of This Story

With the use of an old, borrowed word processor, 19-year-old Suheir Hammad began to type out her thoughts. Frustrated by so many things - from her family life to the political climate - Hammad began to tell her story in order to understand her own identity. In this soul-searching narrative, Hammad touches on alcoholism, sexist attitudes, race, and culture. As a young Palestinian raised in Brooklyn during the rise of crack and Hip Hop-amidst Puerto Ricans, Africans in America, Asians, and poor whites-Hammad developed her own ideas about the dynamics and meanings of words. In this memoir, Hammad, as part of the Hip Hop generation, gives respect to that art form and to the tradition from which it grew. Drops of This Story is Suheir Hammad's young soul in words, revealing the growing pains of a young woman of color as she tries to write herself into existence.