All American Boys Conflict Analysis Letter

Dear reader,

I decided to read All American Boys this summer, which was written by Brendan Kiely and Jason Reynolds. There are two main characters, Rashad and Quinn, and I decided to focus on the cultural confrontations Quinn has throughout the book. Quinn is a high school senior living in Springfield with his younger brother and his mother. His father was killed in the war in Afghanistan, so he is expected to be a responsible, dutiful son of the man who had died for his country, even though he sometimes is certainly not.

Quinn’s inner conflicts start when he accidentally witnesses the violent arrest of his peer, Rashad, a black kid by his father figure Paul Guzzalo, who is a police officer. He tries to forget what he saw and, to tell himself that Paul was only doing his job, nothing more. However, while he tries to deceive himself, Quinn’s conscience tells him that what he saw was wrong. That it was not duty but hatred in Paul’s eyes.

Not only from his conscience, Quinn also receives a lot of pressure from his environment, his mother, his friends, and his basketball coach. His mother constantly tells him not to be involved in anything stupid, and to just be a responsible student. His closest friend tells him that his brother’s (Paul Guzzalo) actions were not based on racism because he was only doing his job. His coach tells them that they should drop this incident and focus on their plays which they worked on so hard for a long time.

Despite all those factors, in the end, Quinn has a clear decision. He is the son of a brave man who did not only die for his country, but for what he believed was right. He is the one who should live up to his father’s legacy, by standing tall against injustice and intolerance . All those thoughts in his mind were what drove him to join the protests with the purpose of standing up against this monster of racism.

Quinn’s struggle through the book showed what authors wanted us to get from this book. It is standing up to what is right. No matter what, no matter who is on the other side, it is looking at events objectively and in the end, standing tall with determination against the hardships that intolerance and inequity brings.

Sincerely

Mahir Kaya