65 pages • 2-hour read
Happy Land
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Themes
Content Warning: This section of the guide includes discussion of racism and death.
The Importance of Collective History to the Self
Happy Land utilizes a shifting first-person point of view occurring at different points in time to explore the impact that history has on Nikki’s identity and sense of self. At the start of the novel, she is feeling lost in her life, unfulfilled by her real estate career and struggling to find a sense of purpose. The novel then explores not only her journey, but the journey of her ancestors as they, too, find a place to belong. As Nikki learns more about her family, she develops a firmer sense of her own identity, with her experience reflecting the importance of collective history to the self.
Nikki begins by going to visit Mother Rita without fully understanding why or how it will help her in her life. She admits to Mother Rita that she doesn’t like to read, and feels out of place in the rural setting of North Carolina. With Mother Rita’s encouragement, she becomes more engaged in uncovering her family’s past. While researching at the library, she meets Bryan—who will later become her boyfriend—and, more importantly, she begins to discover more about the many hardships her ancestors had to confront and overcome in their quest for freedom. The more involved Nikki becomes in her family’s collective history, the more she develops a deeper understanding of her own self and identity: She begins to feel attached to Mother Rita’s land and more at ease in her surroundings.
In learning about Luella, Nikki discovers a sense of belonging and clear direction for the first time in her life. The final pages of the novel, which reflect her hopes for the future, emphasize the change that Nikki has undergone. As she explains to Mama, “I realized that maybe I would’ve done different if I’d known I was descended from royalty. Maybe I would’ve gone to college or dreamed bigger. Maybe I would’ve understood that the possibilities for my future were limitless” (321). Her words emphasize that her past has not only a metaphorical impact on her identity, but a literal one as well.
Although Nikki speaks in the past tense about what she could have done, she ends the novel by staying on Mother Rita’s land with the hopes of building a “family business” (336) around a greenhouse and a nursery. Her growing feelings for Bryan give hope that she will plant her own roots and history in Hendersonville, using her own ancestry as a starting point. In this way, her family’s collective past shapes both her newfound sense of self and her future.
The Politics of Land Ownership
One of the primary conflicts in the novel is Mother Rita’s desire to keep her land while it is being sold out from under her, without her knowledge or consent. Her problems echo those of Luella in the past timeline 150 years prior, revealing the ways in which land ownership has been a fraught issue for Black Americans for centuries. Through Mother Rita and Luella’s struggles to retain control of their land, the novel exposes the politics of land ownership.
Mother Rita’s dilemma reflects a longstanding conflict that many Black Americans have experienced under a racist legal system: While she has land that was passed down to her by her ancestors through generations, she has no legal claim to the land because of a lack of any will. As a result, the situation gives another relative the ability to claim the land, go to court, and take possession of it, selling it out from under Mother Rita. As Mother Rita’s lawyer, R.J., explains, legal challenges to Black land ownership have resulted in the loss of “nearly 90 percent of [Black] land over the course of the twentieth century,” leading to the loss of “hundreds of billions of dollars” (186). While Mother Rita’s story is fictional, Perkins-Valdez uses it to call attention to this predatory practice that has deeply affected the Black American population.
In a similar situation, Luella twice finds herself struggling against the politics of land ownership and the legalities of her kingdom. The first time, she is confronted by locals who insist that the kingdom begin paying tax for the land they are living on. Faced with the threat of violence or even death, Luella and the others decide to buy the land, taking legal ownership in an effort to avoid the systemic racism of the South. Later, when she is forced to sell her land to get a lawyer for Wade, Weaver takes advantage of her lack of power within the legal system by trying to sell it back to her for far more than they originally agreed upon. Like Mother Rita, Luella faces the discriminatory nature of land ownership in the United States.
While Luella eventually buys back 50 acres, these are the same acres that Mother Rita will once again have to fight to retain in court a century and a half later, reinforcing the ongoing nature of this issue. Both Luella and Mother Rita’s struggles thus illustrate how racism still impacts who gets to inherit what, and who controls what land.
The Battle Against Historical Erasure
Happy Land explores the historical narratives of the Kingdom of the Happy Land, something which is largely missing from any written historical record. Despite the accomplishments of what Luella and her people did—creating a kingdom, ruling it with a king and queen, and surviving for over two decades as a thriving Black community in the post–Civil War South—their narrative is largely forgotten. Through the story of Luella, Perkins-Valdez gives voice to this important piece of history, spotlighting the battle against historical erasure.
As Nikki struggles to find information about the Kingdom of the Happy Land, her narrative reflects the real-world difficulties of researching this piece of history. When Nikki searches online in the library, the only record she can find is the pamphlet written by Sadie Smathers Patton, a white historian. Patton’s status as the only authoritative mainstream source for the kingdom reflects how Black history has often been controlled by historians from outside of the community, making it harder for Black Americans to tell and control their own narratives.
To combat this historical erasure, Nikki’s story emphasizes the importance of oral history. When Nikki arrives in Hendersonville, she is initially dismissive of Mother Rita’s attempt to teach her about her history, dismissing the idea of the kingdom as a “fairy-tale.” However, as she learns to value her ancestry, she begins to take Mother Rita more seriously and learns everything that she can about the kingdom. As Mother Rita explains, “[M]y mama told me and her mama told her. Much as I love the historical record, it doesn’t have all the answers, especially when it comes to our stories. Some history passed from mouth to mouth. Some history came down in the form of a mother’s whisper” (191). Mother Rita’s words call attention to an important fact about marginalized histories: They have often gone unrecorded or ignored, leaving people to rely on oral history to learn about their pasts.
Through Nikki’s journey, she fights back against the erasure of her people, ending the novel by insisting that she is going to pass on their legacy. She moves onto Mother Rita’s land, embracing the importance of cultivating both the land and the memories associated with it. In tending to the graveyard and embracing the importance of keeping the kingdom’s memory alive through public presentations and oral family history, Nikki attempts to ensure that the kingdom will live on as a part of Black American history.
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