64 pages • 2 hours read
Daniel José OlderShadowshaper
Fiction | Novel | YA | Published in 2015A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
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Community Versus Gentrification
As Shadowshaper begins, it seems to follow the template of many fantasy novels, where one special hero or heroine is summoned to save their home or family. This trope is commonly referenced as the “Chosen One” trope, and it seems at first as if Sierra is meant to fill in the role of the Chosen One, meant to save her family and community. However, as the novel progresses, it soon becomes clear that Sierra is as reliant on her community as they are on her to save them. Sierra has been shaped by her unique community, filled with people from an assortment of cultural and economic backgrounds, each with their own unique voice and story.
Though Sierra has been blessed with a special gift as the Lucera of the shadowshapers, she relies on members of her community to help her throughout her journey. Manny first starts the journey by fostering Sierra’s artistic talent. Nydia helps Sierra understand her enemy, Wick, and helps uncover his motives. Robbie guides Sierra in using her powers, and her friends Bennie, Izzy, Tee, and Big Jerome help her defeat her enemies. As Mama Carmen explains to Sierra, “The true source of shadowshaper magic is in that connection, community, Sierra. We are interdependent” (220). Sierra’s community gives her strength, and in return, Sierra endows her community with her powers and special gifts. Unlike many Chosen One figures, Sierra does not stand on her own, but she instead finds strength and power from the people who have helped to shape her into what she is.
The importance of community parallels an underlying issue in the novel: gentrification. Several times throughout, Sierra notes the way the community is changing and how she no longer feels comfortable: “[…] she was getting funny stares from all sides—as if she was the out-of-place one, she thought” (82). She likens a neighborhood that she grew up in to being on a different planet. Older’s message here is that ethnic communities, and the magic therein, are at-risk because of gentrification. He reiterates this message in his villain, as Wick appropriates Sierra’s culture for his own selfish purposes in the same way that White people overtake Sierra’s community.
Embracing and Understanding Family Heritage
Sierra learns that she has a powerful family heritage as both a shadowshaper and the new Lucera, and one of the major conflicts of the novel is that both these roles have been kept secret from her. Sierra’s supernatural heritage parallels her racial and cultural heritage, which have also been kept hidden to a degree. María and Tía Rosa both strive to downplay their African and Puerto Rican heritage or any traits that mark them as being non-white, and these efforts cause Sierra to feel a sense of shame about some of her physical features. Tía Rosa discourages dark skin and teases Sierra for being attracted to a dark boy like Robbie.
However, as Sierra learns more about her shadowshaping abilities and embraces this part of her identity, she also gains more confidence in these other aspects of her background. With this new confidence, Sierra challenges her mother for ignoring all parts of her cultural identity: “Well, I’m not afraid, Mami. I’m not scared of my power. I’m not ashamed of what I got. Not ashamed of my history, and I’m not ashamed of Abuela” (234). Where María has seen her culture as shameful and something to keep hidden, Sierra learns to share her heritage with her friends and the world around her. Seeing the strength that Sierra has been able to draw from embracing her family heritage, María experiences a change of heart that sees her also taking on her shadowshaping abilities at the end of the novel.
Before learning about shadowshaping, Sierra did not know what feminine power her family was capable of. Her grandfather sought to keep her and the other women in the family out of the shadowshaper sphere, despite how necessary women from Sierra’s family are to the group’s survival; the novel notes that the murals will fade without a Lucera to keep the magic alive. Sierra’s grandfather’s arrogance here, and his dismissal of Sierra’s abilities, outline the core tenants of his hyper masculinity. When Sierra learns that her grandmother was actually the Lucera, and she’s destined to take the role, she at last finds the feminine power that is her birthright.
The Living and the Dead
Shadowshaper encourages a unique outlook on the relationship between those who are living and those who have died. In many Westernized countries, those who have died are often considered to be either gone forever or moved on to a different place separate from the living, like Heaven or Hell. However, Older offers a different interpretation that borrows from cultures—such as Puerto Rican culture—that believe the living and the dead are still very much intertwined. In Shadowshaper, this continuing connection takes on a fantastical shape, with Sierra recognizing her ability to interact with the spirits of the dead by giving them a second life through her artwork. In turn, the dead look after Sierra and her family, protecting them from harm and any evils that might befall them. Sierra describes their interdependence on each other: “She shut her eyes and became instantly aware of the many spirits working for her, as their vision was hers” (284). Though Sierra still mourns the loss of those who have passed on, such as Mama Carmen and Manny, this ability allows her to honor her loved ones and stay connected to them, albeit in a very different form.
The commingling of the living and dead allows Sierra to connect with her culture in a way that wasn’t possible before. Though her grandfather leaves her out of the shadowshaper world because of her gender, she gains access to this world of her ancestors by meeting her own, dead grandmother. As Robbie points out, the shadowshaper’s communion with the spirits isn’t about control, but the shadowshaper works with the spirits for the good of both. Conversely, Wick uses the spirits to attain his own, twisted agenda—he not only appropriates Sierra’s culture, but he appropriates her dead ancestors.
