African symbol of Sankofa—a bird that “looks back upon itself,” as if to retrieve the past. Her mother used the Sankofa as a sign that people of African heritage, like the narrator, need to stay rooted to their predecessors. Later in the novel, the word Sankofa crops up in the narrator’s life again. It is the name Aimee has given her new adopted African baby, a baby with whom the narrator, too, fell in love. Both the baby and the name seem to have been plucked out of their context and transplanted in a wealthy, famous white woman’s world. It is no longer clear what Sankofa will look back at, having been taken so far from her origins. The narrator is enraged by the way in which Aimee has appropriated a name, a child, an idea, a cultural symbol, and even a piece of the narrator’s own past. That such appropriation can occur so casually shakes up the narrator.

As the narrator indicates, Aimee’s ongoing engagement with the West African village involves cultural appropriation and is motivated by a white savior complex. The very idea that Aimee can reduce global poverty is suspect, as is her ignorance of her own part in the unequal distribution of global wealth. She rolls into the village in a “cavalcade” of SUVs, assuming a god-like stance. She covets and romances Lamin, arranging for him to come to New York with her. The poverty in Africa which dismays the narrator is for Aimee as natural in its context as daylight. Aimee’s tourist status enables her to look at the poverty dispassionately, as something discrete from her. Later, Aimee organizes a dance concert with a “West African theme” and dresses herself and her children as “Asante nobles.” It is a variation on the theme of blackface, which is introduced with the image of Fred Astaire appropriating the dance moves of Bill “Bojangles” Robinson while paying tribute to him. The narrator’s favorite childhood film, Swing Time, itself involves cultural appropriation, with its two white leads dancing to swing music that is African-American in origin. So powerful is this cultural hegemony that the narrator only realizes the cultural appropriation years later as an adult.

What do we want from our mothers when we are children? Complete submission.

Recounting her childhood, the narrator argues that young children first and foremost demand to be the centers of their mothers’ respective worlds. It is the schism between the desire of the child and the reality of the mother that sets up much of the tension between mother-daughter relations in Swing Time. The narrator’s own mother is a politically aware woman who considers it her duty to educate herself. For the young narrator, this amounts to an abdication of motherhood itself. As a child, she dislikes the fact that, unlike other mothers, her mother lacks the skill of time management and that Saturdays are her mother’s days away from the family. Her mother also seems to lack the maternal indulgence of Tracey’s mother, who showers Tracey with toys and dolls. The narrator in her most childlike mode wants her mother to “lay down arms” and come to her. It is only when the narrator is in her thirties that she recognizes both the irrationality of her demand as well as the struggle of her mother to create some space for herself in the world.

Social and cultural forces play their own role in exalting motherhood. Against such expectations, women, such as the narrator’s mother, often see motherhood as a mixed blessing. The narrator’s mother has witnessed early motherhood jeopardize many lives during her own South London girlhood and dreads such a fate for her daughter. The narrative does not offer any easy answers to women’s predicament of balancing being a mother with being one’s own self. The choice is simple only for women like Aimee, who outsource much of their domestic work to women like Estelle. However, the text also subtly suggests mothering can be equitably distributed, as in the case of the narrator’s family, where her father takes on the domestic role with ease and gladness.