“Being a minority in both caste and class, we moved about anyway on the hem of life, struggling to consolidate our weaknesses and hang on, or to creep singly up into the major folds of the garment.”(Pg. 17)
To break each part down Morrison is pretty much saying that the characters in the book are feeling like all around outsiders from saying “Being a minority in both caste and class,” Caste and class are defined very similar both basically meaning your social class stand point but “class” in our society means the amount of money you make where you live and how hard you have to work for where you’re at but your “class” can always change. “Caste” is a Hindu classing system that the Hindu used to organizing society into hereditary classes based on profession and social status very similar but once labeled you can’t really move or change out of that. The rest of the quote means that even though they are so low on the social status ladder they hold on and try to keep moving forward and work hard to slowly move higher and high up the social food chain to one day be someone or have a better life then they had. This has everything to do with the American dream for the fact the dream is to have that socially acceptable life everybody wants, to not be in poverty and for one day not to struggle to get by but to be able to relax and be happy with their family in a socially and financially comfortable environment.
I like the way you broke this quote down, I agree with you about the meaning of this quote.
Very nice analysis of the quote, David!