Intro: We can't change our past we can only learn from it, whether you're referring to history or personal experience, analyzing the past provides valuable lessons for people. They can draw wisdom and fix their present behavior as the way in The Color of Water. The memoir The Color of Water is McBride’s tribute to his mother. In the novel, McBride goes back and forth between stories between himself and his mother. We see how their life progresses and who they eventually become. Although she initially imposed, Ruth McBride eventually discusses her difficult childhood while James discusses who his mother eventually became. We see how she used her past to learn and thrive from it. The theme of how one’s past can affect their future develops throughout the novel.

Body Paragraph #1:
We can see throughout the novel that Ruth doesn’t dwell on her past she learns from it. She doesn’t want to be another version of her parents so she changes. She had difficult childhood who had a hard time dealing with certain things such as race and religion. Despite Ruth’s painful upbringing, McBride discloses that by learning Tateh’s values and by avoiding his …show more content…
People laugh at her as she walks down the street, and snicker when they hear her speaking Yiddish, even Children at her elementary school tease her for being Jewish. This is something that stuck with her whole life. She did not want her children to feel the way she felt. In the novel it states, “She couldn’t stand racists of either color” (McBride, 30). The subject of persecution both as a Jew and then as a white wife in a mixed marriage, Ruth taught her children to ignore racism. Ruth did not want her kids to feel as she did as a child. She learned from her past and grew as a person. Her past had taught her that the color of your skin doesn’t matter it is who you are as a