109 pages • 3 hours read
Sandra UwiringiyimanaHow Dare the Sun Rise
Nonfiction | Autobiography / Memoir | YA | Published in 2017A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more. For select classroom titles, we also provide Teaching Guides with discussion and quiz questions to prompt student engagement.
Chapters 29-32Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 29 Summary
After an eight-hour bus ride, Sandra arrived at the Port Authority Bus Terminal in Manhattan. She then traveled by subway to Diana’s home in Park Slope, a neighborhood in Brooklyn. She fell asleep soon after arrival; when she awoke, she was unsure of what she would do in the city. She posted updates on Facebook to let her family know she was safe to avoid calling anyone.
One day, Princesse called and asked what was going on. She had gone to talk to one of Sandra’s favorite professors, who told Princesse she believed that Sandra “had become distracted by superficial things, such as makeup and clothes,” thereby losing sight of her priorities (192). Sandra was angry that the professor made so many presumptions about her life without knowing how she was feeling or what she needed.
Diana advised Sandra to get treatment at a free trauma center in Manhattan, as a lack of money made therapy an impossibility. Sandra tried to seek help but was put on a long waiting list and ultimately never received a call to schedule a session. Instead, Sandra began writing her thoughts and feelings to sort through them.
Kaya visited Sandra in New York; upon seeing how sad Sandra looked, she began to cry. Kaya became determined to help Sandra feel better. She created an account for Sandra on the dating app Tinder, then took her dancing at a Latin restaurant and nightclub. On Tinder, Sandra quickly bonded with a man named Rocco who was equally unsure about what to do with his life. Sandra told him about her past experiences and struggles with flashbacks. He introduced her to his family two weeks after they began dating. Sandra envied how, in America, “people could date across cultures and it was not an issue” (195). Being with Rocco’s family fed her craving for familial support. One day, she noticed that a couple of weeks had passed without her having a flashback.
Rachel and Prudence later saw pictures of Rocco on Sandra’s Facebook page, and Rachel assumed Sandra had moved to New York to be with him. These presumptions annoyed Sandra, and she ignored her parents’ messages. However, at Rocco’s encouragement, Sandra visited her sister Adele, who was living in Harlem and working as a nurse. Adele was engaged to a man from the Banyamulenge tribe. Shortly after their reunion, Adele asked if Sandra was having sex with Rocco. Sandra insisted that was none of Adele’s business, and her sister assured Sandra that she was only thinking of her safety. Miffed, Sandra thanked her but said that she was not stupid.
In March, Rocco drove Sandra to Houghton College so she could see some of her friends. He asked if she wanted him to take her to Rochester to visit her parents; she refused but did visit her brother Heritage, who now worked as a pastor. Unlike Adele, Heritage did not ask intrusive questions or make assumptions; he simply asked if she was well. After she assured him that she was, he gave her his love.
While in upstate New York, Sandra showed Rocco around Rochester. Being with him helped her feel more at ease. She began reconnecting with humanitarian groups. One of them, the Women’s Refugee Commission, invited her to a summit in Washington, D.C. There, she met Queen Mathilde, the queen of Belgium—the country that had colonized the Congo in the 19th century. Sandra had no ill will toward her. Instead, they had “a wonderful conversation” in French and discussed “the importance of educating girls around the world” (199). The subject made Sandra think about returning to college.
Chapter 30 Summary
In April, Sandra was invited to the White House Correspondents’ Dinner. Because she had developed a friendship with RefugePoint founder Sasha Chanoff through her deeper involvement with the organization, he invited her to the event. They received tickets to the greeting room, where Sandra stood in a line of celebrities to meet President Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama. When she got to the front of the line, the presidential couple “greeted [her] warmly” (202). Sandra thanked the president for helping resettle refugees from the Congo. There were many other things Sandra wanted to discuss, particularly the Syrian refugees and how fearmongering in America was causing them to be denied help, but she knew her time was limited.
Instead, she complimented Michelle and thanked her for her feminist activism. In response, Michelle asked Sandra to tell her more about her life. After about 10 minutes, a photographer “was getting antsy and asked [Sandra] to turn toward the camera” (203). The president told him to wait until after Sandra and his wife had finished talking. Later, after the dinner, George Lehner, a RefugePoint board member, handed Sandra a note written on a pamphlet. It was from Michelle Obama, who encouraged Sandra to continue her important work. Sandra cried, unable to believe that any of this had happened.
Chapter 31 Summary
Adele’s wedding, also in Rwanda, was at the end of May. The impending wedding date meant Sandra had to mend her relationship with her family. Rocco took her to Rochester in early May, where her parents now lived in “a cozy two-story house” in a suburb (205). As Sandra walked toward their home, Rocco drove off. When she walked into the house, she saw her mother, who was so upset that she did not greet Sandra. Her father had already gone to Rwanda to help plan the wedding; without his presence, Sandra and Rachel did not speak for days.
One day, Sandra’s uncle, Mutware, arrived and served as a mediator. Sandra and her family had lived with Mutware in Burundi after the massacre. He and his family moved to the United States several years after Sandra’s. During the mediation, Rachel spoke about her disappointment with Sandra for leaving school and not keeping in touch. Sandra then told her mother about her flashbacks and guilt over surviving the massacre. She sometimes blamed herself for Deborah’s death and did not like how the family never talked about Deborah. Rachel asked when Sandra was going back to college, and Sandra said she was thinking about attending school in New York City. Her mother wanted her to go back to Houghton College, but Sandra had fallen in love with New York’s energy and wanted to remain there.
Rachel then asked about Rocco. Sandra told her about his wonderful qualities, but Rachel refused to approve of him being a potential spouse. Sandra assured her mother she had no such intention, but she also would not live her life according to her tribe’s expectations. She told her mother she was proud of her tribe and culture but would marry whomever she pleased when the time came. After the talk, Rachel and Sandra began to know each other in a new way.
Chapter 32 Summary
Sandra and her family traveled to Rwanda to attend Adele’s wedding. She saw her father for the first time since she left college. Unlike Rachel, he had no questions; he was merely happy to see her. Sandra spoke to her siblings about finding herself, and they teased her for being so Americanized.
When Sandra returned home, she noticed that she and her mother were growing closer and expressing themselves more. She spent the summer in Rochester with her family and applied to Mercy College in New York. She was accepted and planned to study international relations.
While she repaired her relationship with her family, Sandra and Rocco grew distant. They accepted that they needed to move on, though Sandra felt devastated and cried for days. It pained her that someone so important to her would become a distant memory—not unlike Deborah, whose memory remained with her. Sandra says that, in her dreams, Deborah “is always six years old” (214).
Chapters 29-32 Analysis
In these chapters, Sandra endeavors to understand herself outside of the strictures of identity that had been imposed upon her. Her move to New York City was an attempt to get enough distance from her parents to learn what she needed without their interference. Once Sandra was able to date freely and go where she wanted, her flashbacks subsided. Still, Sandra’s family could not help but to try to impose control from afar, which was masked as concern. Much of this came in the form of trying to police and monitor Sandra’s sexuality. Though her family was more progressive than other members of her tribe, they were still rooted in outmoded ideas about women. It did not occur to them that Sandra’s move was a decision motivated by her desire for personal growth; instead, they assumed it was motivated by her wish to be with a man. Ironically, it was the women in her family—not her father or elder brother—who cast judgment. These reactions are indicative of the ways in which women internalized misogyny and sexism and oppress each other according to patriarchal ideals and strictures.
Sandra’s contact with women in power—Michelle Obama and Queen Mathilde—countered the pressures she felt at home and reassured about continuing her path of activism and embracing feminism. Sandra’s assertions of independence ultimately drew her closer to her mother, who began to see her daughter as a fellow woman.
In this final section, the title also takes on a keener significance. This period in Sandra’s life is bittersweet, marked by the pain of losing Rocco while also accepting its inevitability as they began to feel alienated and directionless. Sandra leaves Houghton in favor of and learns to accept Deborah’s death while also embracing the memories of the extraordinary little girl whom she had been so fortunate to know.
