Top 10 Lessons from The Slave Across the

Street
Makeda Shiferaw
1)Loving yourself becomes harder when others dont
love you. Theresa says, When others dont value or
love you, it becomes difficult to love yourself (Flores
23). Theresa was beginning to tell us how she went
through her harassment stage, and she felt that
nobody really loved her at that time, and she found it
hard to love herself.
2)Keeping a smile on your face where ever you go and
keeping friends who didnt know the truth about you
becomes more and more difficult as time progresses.
Theresa says, I was strained to the breaking point
trying to maintain friends who knew nothing of my
dark secret, keeping a smile on my face at home
(Flores 63). When Theresa was struggling to keep
everything a secret from her parents and friends she
was beginning to realize, she didnt want to hide it
form anyone anymore, but she didnt know who
would still accept her, if she told this could risk her
families lives.
3)Not everything youre being taught is enough for
your survival As Theresa says, They realized all they
had taught would not be enough for my survival
(Flores 85).Theresa realized that she needed to find
help to stop the harassment, and the things they
have been teaching her to do are not helping her to
survive.

4)Help others the way you want to be helped. Theresa

wanted to help her friend as she said I tried to save
her the way I wish someone had tried to save me
(Flores 107). Here Theresa was noticing her friend
and one of the Chaldeans were starting to talk and
she didnt want her friend to have to go through what
she had to go through, she was trying to help her,
wishing someone had tried to help her the same way.
5)Naively, I still believed people were good. I didnt
want to stop believing that, though it was not a belief
that was benefitting me (Flores 110). Generally
most people are good, in Theresas case, she still
believes that people are good, but some of the
people who have come into her life have not been
good to her, and therefore that belief was not doing
any good to her.
6)Through God anything is possible. Theresa was
moving away from Connecticut and thought that,
With Gods help, I won (Flores 113). She believed
that because, since she was moving away, she no
longer had to get harassed and in her mind, she won.
7)My survival depended on my ability to act as if
everything was normal (Flores 117). Theresa was
still attempting to keep her problems a secret from
others, in order to keep herself, and her family safe
from the Chaldeans.
8)Family comes first. As Theresa says, At the end of
the day I did what I felt I had to do to protect myself
and my family (Flores 118). Theresa was worrying
too much about what others thought of her or if
people judge her for her past, or why she never told

her parents about her problems, but she felt she did
what she did for a good reason.
9)As Theresa says, Horrified by our stories they turn
us away (Flores). All because of what had happened
to Theresa in the past, many friends of hers had
probably judged her and left her.
10)
Theresa believes that, Survivors seem to be the
only people who can tell, who will accept the entire
story without judgment (Flores). When Theresa tries
to open up to her friends and tell them things about
herself, or her past, they seem to judge her fast and
dont accept her as a friend.
WORK CITED
Flores, Theresa L. The Slave across the Street. N.p.: n.p., n.d. Print.