My father...response

In "My Father Always Said" by MimiSchwartz, the prose is broken up into 6 sections. The first is a introductory section where she describes her experience in Queens and how her father never got it.

The second section focuses a trip their family took Rindheim, germany. In it, describes their experience in the town in general. In particular, they go to their father's old house and discuss with the person who purchase it.

the third section starts to show signs of her father's realization of the Rindheim that he thought existed does not actually exist. The fourth section continues to show the disparties between the ideal Rindheim and the actual one, yet it illustrates a sense of community that existed between Jews.

The fifth is a climactic moment where Mimi finds out that this was her families land. While her father, sees graves that are missing there and knows his Rindheim does not disappear. The 6th sums up the piece and now Mimi has a deeper understanding of what her father meant.

So how do these tie togather? They work by juxtaposing the author with her father. At first the author does not understand the world of her fatehr and vise versa. Yet by the end they come to accept each other's world. Mimi does it by experiencing Rindheim herself and understaning its historical signaficance within the family.

Her father does it by experiecing the real Rindheim and knowing that the town he remembers was only containted to a certain community. This was eventually obliterated.