Reflection on Grace Paley’s “Traveling”

Traveling, the short story by Grace Paley, is about a time when Paley’s mother and sister rode the bus during the 20s and refused to move up from the back of the bus, despite the fact that “‘It’s for them’–waving over his shoulder at the Negroes, among whom they were now sitting.” (Paley 1) Paley connects this event with a moment in her own life when she offered her own seat on a bus to a black woman holding her baby, and ultimately ended up holding the woman’s child for her in order to let her rest, despite the fact that other white people on the bus disagreed with such a course of action. The piece is on the surface about the racism of the time, not unexpected from Paley, who spent most of her life as an activist, but is also about the events that stick with us and shape us and about the connections that exist between members of a family.

This work is an incredibly proficient piece of writing (a compliment that is an understatement and oversimplification when applied to Paley), and the themes present in the work are still relevant today. Paley and her mother both committing seemingly small yet still powerful acts of defiance in the face of blatant racism provide inspiration that spans decades. As our understanding of social justice and oppression has evolved, there was the chance of the piece coming off as Paley bragging about not being racist, about being a “good white person,” separating herself from other white people as well as separating herself from the responsibility of being a white person within the context of anti-black racism. However, it doesn’t come off as Paley looking for a pat on the back. Instead of bragging about these experiences, Paley is simply reflecting on them and their effect on her and her family.

This is where the more subtle themes of the piece shine through. The situations show us the connection that Paley has to her mother through their similar characters, as well as the connection that began forming when she was twenty years old that was fully formed when her grandson was born. We are shown that her mother had strong opinions on oppression, and we can infer that her mother was the one who first began to teach Paley about oppression and helped her find her activist roots. These situations also had a strong impact on Paley’s siblings, although they don’t share that fact and therefore connect with Paley about it until later in their lives. Five hundred words are not enough to contemplate the intricacies of this piece, the emotion that seeps from every word, and the subtext that lurks behind Paley’s sentences.