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long-suffering, complacent, uncomplaining, patient
“ Some of those who are awake have stoic looks, neither particularly unhappy nor contented”(57). |
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fond of company, sociable, loving to "hang out"
“ ‘Calderon,’ says Rivera-Beckman, ‘was an outgoing man, gregarious, and something of a showman’”(60). |
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made in intricate shape, or decorated with complex patterns
“On the wall of the building in the back is a memorial in ornate graffiti: Calderon Sugar Rest in Peace”(61). |
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a condition arising when the body is deprived of oxygen, causing unconsciousness or death; suffocation
"In cold of winter, as in summer's heat, a feeling of asphyxia seems to contain the neighborhood" (71). |
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disagreement, argument, or debate
“She also shows me the prospective site of a new police academy, which, she says, ‘may or may not be built right now,’ depending on the outcome of a political dispute”(72). |
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admits that something is true or valid, after first denying it
“These types of institutions, she concedes, do generate some jobs”(72). |
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make less severe, heal, make something easier to endure
“So it’s an investment in perpetuation of the ghetto, a guarantee of endless misery that services like these may partially alleviate but also need in order to be justified”(72). |
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inspiring disgust and loathing, offensive, abominable, repellent, horrible
“A good society had been defined as one in which the segregation of the races was abhorrent”(72). |
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surrounded with armed forces in order to capture it or force its surrender, crowded oppressively, surrounded and harassed
“The homes of many people such as Charlayne Washington and Cliffie’s mother, no matter how besieged, are nonetheless kept spotless and sometimes even look cheerful”(73). |
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disturbing and horrifying because of involvement with or depiction of death
“But the poetry can also seem macabre: at one end of the park, bears in a tree and, at the other, a memorial to the drug dealer, dead at 35 after dealing death to many”(73). |
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not in harmony, or in keeping with the surroundings
“As I remember this experience it occurs to me that it may strike a reader as a bit incongruous that we would be sitting here in one of the poorest urban neighborhoods of the United States, and one of the diseased blocks of New York and be speaking of John Milton’s epic poem and Edmund Spenser’s Faerie Queen”(75). |
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a thing belonging to or appropriate to a period other than that in which it exists, particularly, a thing that is conspicuously old-fashioned
“At the time, however, the anachronism did not come to mind”(75). |
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a person assisting someone in a religious service or procession, an assistant or follower of any belief system
“He mentions that he is ‘an acolyte’ for Reverend Overall, whom he, like other children in the
neighborhood, calls ‘Mother Martha’”(78). |
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the ability to deeply understand and even to share the feelings of another
“Father Glenworth Miles, pastor of the church that burned to the ground two months before – a church that also was his home – speaks, not surprisingly perhaps, with empathy for homeless people, many of whom wander in his neighborhood”(78). |
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making something bad only a tiny bit better
“We are not about amelioration here”(81). |
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having or displaying a dashing, jaunty, or slightly disreputable quality or appearance
“As the procession ends, three black teenagers who look tough and shy at the same time enter the sanctuary from the rear, then another young black man, approximately 25 years old, a young Puerto Rican woman in a rakish velvet hat, and an elderly Hispanic man in a straw
hat with a red band, who sits next to me”(86). |
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declares someone free from blame, guilt, or responsibility
“After the confession, the priest absolves the people of their sins and then concludes this portion of the service”(88). |
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