Summer Reading Program

Reader's Guide - Honky by Dalton Conley

Chapter Ten: “Welcome to America” (pages 111-20)

Content Questions:

1. How does Conley’s mother react to his comments about where she is from?
2. Why does the father of the family across the road decide not to let the Conley children play with his children anymore?
3. Why did Alexandra have to attend summer school in Pennsylvania?
4. Which group was Conley placed with in the local boy scout camp the year he discusses in this chapter?  How did he react to that?
5. Why does Conley feel so uncomfortable about having to go to church?

Discussion Questions & Journal Ideas:

1. What does the family’s conversation about the local economy around Carbondale and Scranton reveal about the area and America in general?  How does this fit with the sign that scares Conley and his sister: “Welcome to Pennsylvania: Where America Starts” (114)?
2. What aspects of life in Pennsylvania make Conley and his sister uncomfortable?  How does this reveal more about what life is like back home for them?
3. This chapter explores many aspects of culture that form parts of our identities: how we speak to each other, how we listen to music (and what types of music we listen to), etc.  Think of an aspect of your life that clearly identifies you as belonging to a particular race, class, ethnic group, or geographic region.  How does it represent who you are, or does it?
4. This chapter involves Conley’s first (but not his last) commentary on the racially-charged term, “nigger” (117).  In what context is the word used in this chapter, and by whom?  How does Alexandra respond?   How does Conley describe the difference between the use of the word in Pennsylvania and its use back home in NYC?  How easy or difficult is it for you to articulate your own response to that word?  
5. Describe and discuss your response to the casual racism of Alexandra’s world history instructor.  Speculate on the impact such an attitude might have on this instructor’s students.  How would you react to such  a lesson?
6. Explain what you think Conley means when he writes, “In that moment, freshly blessed in my Boy Scout fatigues, I felt more like an American than ever before” (120).   What does he seem to be saying about the role of religion in American life, and how is he defining “America”?

 

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