Caucasia

India is a symbol of utopia and an imagined alternative to Birdie’s black-and-white world. At the beginning of the novel, Dot leaves for India to study eastern spirituality with no plans to return. Her departure foreshadows Deck’s flight to Brazil, which he believes will be a racism-free paradise, and contrasts Sandy and Birdie’s departure into rural white America, which is a kind of paradise for Sandy. One day at the beach, Birdie tells a group of children that she is from India in response to their question, “Where are you from?” (184). “India” is coded as exotic and “other” in New Hampshire. Nicholas even calls Birdie “Pocahontas,” another kind of Indian. A Pakistani man on the plane to San Francisco speaks to Birdie in his language and is disappointed with her reveals her ethnicity. In this case, “Indian” represents the self and Birdie must disappoint her seatmate who sees her mixed-race blackness as “other.” 

Elemeno is Cole and Birdie’s secret language. When they are young, they spend hours in the attic, building cities and telling stories. Elemeno symbolizes Birdie and Cole’s relationship. The first time they disagree is when Birdie tells Cole in Elemeno that she wants to leave Nkrumah because the girls bully her. Cole replies, “No, Birdie. I kind of like it. It’s fun. I want to stay” (47). The disagreement signals that they are growing apart. The more comfortable Cole becomes in her new school, the less she plays games in Elemeno with Birdie, seeing them as “childish” (74). Over time, Birdie starts to forget Elemeno. When she is in New Hampshire with her mother, the words begin “to sound like gibberish” (151). When she reunites with Cole, however, the forgotten knowledge returns: “She began to speak to me then in broken Elemeno. At first I didn’t understand it, but then it began to come back to me” (405). The language symbolizes the sisters’ bond, which, even though it weakened, could not break.