At the beginning of the memoir, the reader learns Piri is Puerto Rican, but as time goes on, Piri and the reader both recognize that he is darker than most of his family and most of his Puerto Rican friends. While those in his life are white-passing, Piri looks more like a black man, something he comes to resent along his journey. The need to understand the pain and plight of the black man pushes Piri to travel to the South—which, particularly in the 1940s and 1950s, is still rampant with racism, lynchings, and hatred.

Piri feels he doesn’t fit in anywhere. He is too dark to be identified as Puerto Rican, and he feels he isn’t black because of his cultural roots. The Italians beat him up and call him racial slurs, and the white girls on Long Island are horrified that a “colored boy” would even speak to them. The more he tries to unpack his identity, the more he comes to resent everyone: Puerto Ricans, white folks, and the black community.

Piri’s friend, Brew, a black man from the South, tries to help Piri understand the ways of the world. No matter what Piri feels, Brew emphasizes, his skin color dictates his reality. Brew tries to explain that the system was built on something much larger than race: that is, power. There are people of all kinds, white included, who are suffering, but Piri doesn’t want to be associated with any race but his own, not realizing that he is carrying his own prejudices.

Piri’s struggles to fit in and accept his skin color illuminate not only the struggles that remain from slavery but also the prejudices within one’s own racial group. The reader learns that people are far more than their skin color, but racial divides and ingrained prejudices continue to divide the nation and the world. Identity runs far deeper than the skin, but understanding one’s place seems dependent on acknowledging the dominance of colorism in the world.

Throughout the story, Piri remains loyal to the streets. He feels a call to “have heart” and ensure that his reputation is upheld, but his loyalty almost costs him his life. However, this concept of loyalty isn’t really a choice for Piri. It’s either “eat or be eaten”—because if Piri doesn’t create a reputation for himself on his block, he will be beaten, or worse.

From the beginning of the story, this concept of loyalty to the streets of Harlem makes Piri feel like he needs to be a man; he wants to be looked at as “an hombre,” but this need for external validation and wanting to grow up too quickly hurts Piri in the end. It forces him to make hard choices that damage not only his own future but also the lives of those who are affected by his negative actions, such as the man at the car dealership, the police officer he shoots, and Trina. Even though Piri feels he has to be loyal to street code, this loyalty comes with a price: a long prison sentence and the loss of the woman he loves.

The reader also sees the concept of loyalty play out with Trina. While Piri has multiple affairs, he believes Trina is the one for him and refuses to have sex with her before their wedding day. Even after he gets another girl pregnant, Trina loves him just as deeply. She deals with his abuse and his toxic behaviors, and just like Piri, she remains loyal to his form of...