I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings

Although the town of Stamps is strictly segregated, the Black community sees enough of white people's lives to develop an attitude of "fear-admiration-contempt" (49) for all things "white." What strikes Maya the most is the income inequality: While the Black people of Stamps are barely able to feed their families despite working hard, the white people have so much of everything that they are profligate. Even though Momma has money, since she owns land and houses, she still sews all the clothes for herself and the children and never wastes anything. The only person who wears clothes from a store is Uncle Willie, and every day he puts on a fresh white shirt.

The Great Depression hits the Black community of Stamps later than the rest of the country, but when it does, it delivers a hard blow on Momma’s business. With diminishing income, her Store’s customers can no longer afford to buy food from her, and Momma has to think of a way to keep her business from going bankrupt. She decides to allow customers to trade their welfare rations for food from the Store. Momma manages to keep the Store afloat, but all Maya and Bailey eat for months are powdered milk and powdered eggs.

One Christmas, Maya and Bailey receive presents from their parents, who are divorced and now both living in California. Their father sends a photo of himself, while their mother sends Maya a tea set and a doll with blue eyes and yellow hair. Without even waiting to see Bailey's present, Maya runs outside and cries. Before she got the gifts, she had convinced herself that her parents were dead, and that's why she and her brother had to live with Momma. But now, she had to face the painful question of why their parents had abandoned them. After a few minutes, Bailey comes up to her, wiping his eyes as well, and the two sit in silence. Later the siblings decide that perhaps their mother had been angry at them, and the presents mean that she had forgiven them and would soon come back. 

One day, without any warning, Maya and Bailey's father, Big Bailey, pays a visit to Stamps. Momma is very happy to see her son, but the siblings are shocked when they realize that this tall, handsome stranger is their father. Growing up without parents, they "built such elaborate fantasies about him and the elusive mother" (54) that it's hard for them to perceive him as real. His looks and his car suggest that he is very rich, and Maya fantasizes about him having "a castle out in California" (55)". Later she learns that he works as a doorman at one of Santa Monica's plush hotels and feels alienated from such an attractive and worldly father. He is different from other residents of Stamps not just in his looks but also in his speech because he speaks "proper English, like the school principal" (54).

After spending three weeks in Stamps, Big Bailey announces that he is taking the children to California. Maya is unsure if she wants to go, but the thought of being separated from Bailey is unbearable to her. Momma Henderson doesn't display her true emotions about the children leaving and instead pours her time and energy into sewing new clothes for Maya.

When the siblings and their father are already on their way, he tells them that they are going not to his house in California, but to St. Louis to see their mother. Maya fears that her mother will laugh at them, just as their father did, and Bailey is also worried about seeing their mother. Yet when they meet, Bailey is immediately enchanted with her beauty and charm and calls her "Mother Dear" (59). Maya, on the other hand, can't forget all those years of feeling abandoned and doesn't feel comfortable in her mother's company.