Alexandra Mitchell
Dr. Lamont King
GAFST 200
November 30, 2010
Sugar Cane Alley
Jose understands at a young age that in order to escape the indentured life of working in a sugar cane plantation like his ancestors before him, he must do something different. In the classroom, Jose is a very bright student as seen through his peers and especially his professor who eventually helped Jose get into a prestigious school because of his academic excellence. He assures his grandmother who is his sole provider and family that one day she’ll no longer have to work tirelessly in the sugar cane plantation. Jose dreams of taking work in a more profitable and higher field then the plantation his community is chained to all being done by attaining …show more content…

Jose learns through Mr. Mdeouze that Africa has yet to return to it’s roots and white power is still perceived to be the dominant race in it’s every attempt to control all aspects of the African American life and still hold their power to utilize them for hard labor. Leopold is a young mulatto living amongst the plantation and is the son of the white landowner of the Sugar Cane plantation. When his father falls ills and is on his deathbed, he refuses to pass down his position to Leopold with the explanation of it being a white man’s job and not one of a Mulatto. Leopold lived in his family’s nice home with his African mother then denying the African roots in him by his family’s societal stance. By not allowing Leopold to inherit the plantation as a legitimate landowner, this then denies also the white man roots in him. Therefore by being rejected by both sides of the race spectrum unsurprisingly lead to the demise of Leopold. He found himself hopeless in terms of his identity and in mounds of trouble as seen at the end of the movie. I believe Leopold’s fate was inevitable because he was rejected and out casted in his own community and no longer had an adequate place in society. The tightly controlled labor economy in