Romiette and Julio

Fiction | Novel | YA | Published in 1999

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Summary

Background

Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Chapters 1-13

Chapters 14-28

Chapters 29-39

Chapters 40-52

Chapters 53-62

Character Analysis

Themes

Symbols & Motifs

Important Quotes

Essay Topics

Background

Literary Context: Adaptations of William Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet

Sharon M. Draper’s Romiette and Julio does not hide its literary roots, its debt to the play Romeo and Juliet, William Shakespeare’s iconic tragedy of young lovers doomed because of their families’ feud. The students at Thomas Jefferson High School read Romeo and Juliet in their English class and watch the musical West Side Story, an adaptation of Romeo and Juliet. Furthermore, the novel’s police captain and principal newscaster mention the striking similarity between Romi and Julio’s names and Shakespeare’s characters. Romeo and Juliet’s popularity for more than four centuries attests to its relevance. Because of its defiant teenage characters and examination of powerful emotions, the play is a go-to text for high school English classes; for many, it is their introduction to Shakespeare.

Narrative elements of Romeo and Juliet have become familiar in various novel and film adaptations: Adaptations often follow two young, reckless lovers driven by passion, theirs being a forbidden love that violates entrenched boundaries and is doomed to end in death. Romiette and Julio, however, makes a significant change to the Shakespearean template. In the novel, tension does not come from a longstanding feud between families, as it does in Shakespeare’s tragedy, nor does it explicitly come from two warring gangs as it does in Leonard Bernstein and Stephen Sondheim’s musical West Side Story. Rather, the friendship-turned-romance between Romi, an African American girl, and Julio, a Mexican American boy, irks the Black gang that runs Thomas Jefferson High School—the Devildogs.

Draper’s adjustment gives the novel a distinct twist. Because neither Romi nor Julio is directly involved with the Devildogs, they survive their ordeal. Unlike other recent adaptations of the Shakespeare story—such as Alexandria Bellefleur’s Written in the Stars (2020), Chloe Gong’s These Violent Delights (2020), Emily Wibberley’s Always Never Yours (2019), and Walter Dean Myers’s Street Love (2009)—in which their lovers meet a certain doom, Romiette and Julio has a more optimistic ending. In this, Draper’s novel is not so much an adaptation of the Shakespeare story as it is an alternative version that affirms the triumph of love over hate and friendship over division.

Genre Context: Young Adult Fiction and Racism

Young adult (YA) fiction has been largely defined by escapist books that entertain teen readers with stories of magic, vampires, and such, often set in alternate universes. However, YA fiction has since expanded to examine controversial real-world dilemmas. Many YA writers argue that complex, realistic characters with grounded conflicts connect to teen readers better than fantasy characters with abstract conflicts. Nowadays, the genre examines abuse, gun violence, internet culture, mental health and suicide, as well as racism and sexuality in an effort to teach teenagers how to cope with difficult realities.

Romiette and Julio examines racism in particular: According to Julio, “Our generation looks at people as humans, not as races” (151). Julio’s father fears Black people because a Black gang killed his first girlfriend years ago, and he attempts to explain his reasoning to his idealistic son. The Black gang that terrorizes Romi and Julio’s high school, the Devildogs, is also rooted in racism—they judge potential threats according to skin color. Due to their dogma, the gang deems Julio, a brown-skinned Hispanic boy, a threat to their “turf” and doesn’t take kindly to his relationship with Romi, a Black girl.

The Toxic Logic of Racism is difficult for a modern audience to understand, considering widely accepted changes to corrupt structures such as American slavery. However, racism persists and is often a part of growing up for people of color, creating a subgenre of YA realism in which teenage characters explore their racial identity and how it impacts their place in broader culture. These books give voice to a generation struggling with both legacies and current realities of racism: scapegoating (for example, some Americans blaming all Muslims for the 9/11 terrorist attacks or all Asians for the COVID-19 pandemic); systemic racial bias in the justice system; the effects of race on education, employment opportunities, and economic status; the impact of race on crime statistics; and the resurgence of supremacist organizations.

Despite its prevalence, the subgenre of YA realism is not without controversy. Many titles have sparked debates between parents, schools, and public libraries regarding whether or not the discussion of racism is appropriate for teenage readers, and to what degree. Yet titles such as Romiette and Julio have won awards and become bestsellers, commended by both parent groups and educators for their efforts to shed light on racism in an approachable, honest way. Similar titles include Sharon M. Draper’s later novel Blended (2018), in which a mixed-race girl deals with her brother being racially profiled by Cincinnati police; Jewell Parker Rhodes’s Ghost Boys (2018), in which a 12-year-old Black boy shot by police returns as a ghost to tell his story; Angie Thomas’s The Hate U Give (2017), in which a Black girl witnesses the police shoot her friend and seeks justice; and Michael S. Bandy’s White Water (2011), in which a Black child living in the South in the 1950s drinks from a “whites only” city water fountain. In each novel, the teenage characters rise above the inhumanity of racism and assert optimism for the future.