71 pages • 2 hours read
Mawi AsgedomOf Beetles and Angels: A Boy’s Remarkable Journey from a Refugee Camp to Harvard
Nonfiction | Autobiography / Memoir | YA | Published in 2001A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more. For select classroom titles, we also provide Teaching Guides with discussion and quiz questions to prompt student engagement.
Symbols & Motifs
Angels and Beetles
Numerous examples of “angels” and “beetles” are seen throughout the text, supporting the book’s primary theme that appearances can be deceiving. Beetles, in this book, refer to an individual perceived by society as being lowly, undeserving, or otherwise maligned. However, as Mawi notes in Chapter 5, these beetles are usually angels in disguise, meaning, the “beetles” often have value far beyond their immediate appearance.
The “beetles” that appear throughout the text are numerous, and they arrive in the story in different contexts. There are the two homeless men cared for by both Haileab and Tewolde. There is the collective habesha refugee community, often perceived as lowly and undeserving. Mawi himself is often looked down upon, particularly by his classmates in Wheaton. All of these instances show that “beetles” in America have many different permutations. Notably, while “beetles” can be different ages/backgrounds, people of color are most often deemed “beetles” in this text.
Haileab is perhaps the most poignant example of a beetle/angel, seeing as Haileab is rendered a beetle twice over the course of the book. First, he is given beetle status simply by coming to America and losing the wealth and dignity he had as a doctor in Africa. In America, he is only able to secure work as a janitor. When Haileab’s eyesight begins to fail due to glaucoma and cataracts, he is not even able to perform those menial custodial tasks; with advanced age and increase infirmity, he is relegated to an even lowlier beetle status, sinking to a new level of dependence on his family. He loses his teeth, develops diabetes, and his health descends even further. As Haileab becomes more of a beetle in Chapters 11 and 12, the reader is then reminded of the true meaning behind this motif, in Chapter 13: when all of Haileab’s accomplishments are laid out during his funeral ceremony, the reader understands that Haileab’s true status is that of an “angel.”
Perhaps the most prominent and poignant reference to a “beetle” is the scene in Chapter 11, when Mawi envisions Haileab as an actual beetle, referencing Kafka’s The Metamorphosis. Much like in Kafka’s original text, the symbolism here is clear: as a “monstrous black beetle,” a once proud man is alienated from society by being transformed into a grotesque pestilence.
Language
Adding to the richness and texture of the habesha refugee experience, Mawi uses words and phrases from Tigrinya, an Afroasiatic language spoken in Eritrea and northern Ethiopia. Tigrinya is the language of the habesha, and in being one of the book’s central motifs, Mawi emphasizes the importance of culture, as language is a portable artifice that can continue cultural traditions outside one’s homeland.
Even in English, Mawi takes care to preserve the clunky syntax of refugee language, leading to Haileab’s unique and signature phrase “I will make you lost,” and Haileab’s referring to prison as “the house of imprisonment.”
Haileab is also, as we learn, an artist with words: “He [Haileab] had a rare talent for rhyming in geetme, our culture’s spoken-word freestyle rap. He would go on for half an hour without pause” (103). In one such instance, Haileab’s geetme recited in Tigrinya, is as follows: “Oh, you, who are called handicapped. Aren’t you the very ones who boundless joy leap over the expansive red sea?” (103). Language, particularly here, is a way of participating in a performative habesha tradition, and not only connects Haileab to his roots but also it gives him a way of expressing and processing his disability—a more universal use of language. At Haileab’s funeral, this powerful chapter concludes with a recitation in Tigrinya.
HabeshaFood
Mawi emphasizes that habesha culture is of enormous importance to refugees living in exile in America. From injera bread to boona,habesha food is another means of transferring culture from Africa to the United States.
Food, as we see particularly in Chapter 4, helps alleviate homesickness: “Even with their constant support, though, we still felt the deepest homesickness. We yearned for a piece of injera bread or a bowl of sebhi stew. For a neighbor who spoke our own language. For our people” (23). When Mawi’s family first arrives in America, they are completely removed from their home culture, until a few local habesha women visit them: “Out of nowhere, two angels at our door. It was two of our people: habesha women. And they came bearing gifts: injera bread and sebhi stew. My mother burst into tears upon seeing them” (24). In this section, the reader also witnesses the process of how a culture may incrementally change over time: “They [the habesha women] showed my mother how to make injera and sebhi using American utensils” (24). Because traditional habesha cooking utensils are not readily available in the United States, Mawi and his family must make due with American utensils in order to make traditional habesha food – however, the food will not be the same as if it were made in Ethiopia. When habesha food is made in America, it changes ever so slightly, mirroring the experience of the habesha people themselves.
Chapter 9, “Coffee Tales,” is devoted entirely to the ritual surrounding boona, the habesha form of coffee. Through this food ritual, the habesha have access to their deepest cultural roots, and sometimes even painful, repressed memories: “The boona reaches in and uncuffs their tongues, allowing them to discuss memories they would otherwise leave untouched” (77). Sharing memories over boona is another way of continuing habesha traditions in America, while also serving a therapeutic function for a community that has suffered deeply.
