"Recitatif" by Toni Morrison RR

1.  From the clues provided by the narrator, how do you figure out the race and class backgrounds of the two main characters, Twyla and Roberta?  Why do you think Toni Morrison presents this in the way she does?
         In "Recitatif" Toni Morrison presents multiple characteristics and gives us an idea for who the characters Twyla and Roberta are. When Twyla and Roberta are sent to St.Bonny's both of their mothers are not that capable of taking care of them. Twylas mom is described as somebody who keeps dancing while Robertas mother is described as being sick.When both of their moms meet eachother Roberta's mom tries to somewhat avoid Twyla and her mother, Mary. Also being very distant in a way where she just looked at Twyla and  Mary, then just walking away. Reading this I got the idea that Roberta and her mother were white and Twyla and Mary black. Usually when you read or even see something like this its usually a white person completely ignoring a black person. Another clue that further makes this more believable is when Roberta refuses to give her address to Twyla so she can send her letters, but instead told her that she would write to her, where she ended up up not doing. However, I questioned this towards the end of the story when Roberta claimed that Twyla had kicked Maggie ,a deaf woman, at St. Bonnys who she said was black but was described as "sandy-colored" and so i thought Twyla was white and Roberta black. Although Roberta claimed this, at the end of the story she tells Twyla that she was wrong and that Twyla did not do this thus going back to my earlier thought that Twyla was black and Roberta white. As the story progressed and the next few times these two girls meet eachother, Twyla is usually the middle class working girl while Roberta becomes more of an upper class girl., and when they meet at the restaurant Twyla was working in Roberta seems to avoid her in some sort of way while she was on her way to see the famous Jimi Hendrix, which gives the time period as being in the 1960's when race was still a big issue, This further supported my claims about the girls races. When they both became adults and living their own lives, Roberta was living in a nice rich neighborhood called Annandale near Newburgh which was a working class city. Roberta had married a rich widow while Twyla was married to a working class man with a big family. All of these clues bring me to the conclusion that Twyla was black and Roberta was white.