Combing hair, Amoke Alayoe and her children, Silver Spring, Maryland, June 1978

One Book One Northwestern, 2023–24

In this image photographer Roland Freeman presents a familiar scene: a family getting ready, perhaps to leave the house. Sitting on the edge of the bed, a mother brushes the hair of her child sitting on the floor between her legs, who protests by wailing and grabbing at her wrists. An older child sits on the bed wearing a housekey around her neck, unbothered by the conflict, her shoes already laced and hair pulled back. The photograph shows Freeman’s interest in documenting everyday life in Black communities and his particularly vivid form of storytelling. The moment represented is one of intimacy, routine caretaking, and tough love: a mother preparing her child to be presentable for the outside world. It also displays how we learn that our appearance—how we dress, how we wear our hair—communicates something about ourselves to others.

In Crying in H-Mart, Zauner recounts many instances where her mother was preoccupied with her looks, explaining, “My mother was always trying to shape me into the most perfect version of myself.” But the author describes her mother’s desire for perfection went beyond the surface. Zauner explains, “‘Yeppeu’ or pretty was frequently employed as a synonym for good or well-behaved, and this fusion of moral and aesthetic approval was an early introduction to the value of beauty and the rewards it had in store.”