Grace Paley’s memoir Travelling is about a woman’s first encounter with racial discrimination on a bus ride toward the south. The author had never experienced discrimination before therefore she was not familiar with the divide. The unfamiliarity of segregation yielded a response- she had never been targeted for her skin prior to this. Paley’s stranger status allowed her to avoid repercussions for rejecting the social construct; no one knows who she is, where she is from, or where she lives. Paley’s status permits her to combat the social injustices happening around her. She is immune to any targeting due to her anonymity.
