"And we, the aspiring, were ashamed to see ourselves as we had once been. We resented being reminded of our origins. Having escaped the slums, we dreaded slipping back, and we resented savagely the turning of our new homes into a new slum area. All this resentment was flung at the new arrivals. Had they left their junk, dressed in their best and moved in with even one suite of new furniture bought on the installment plan, the women would have turned out with cups of tea. For then the new arrivals would have been, like us. the aspiring. But they had brought the slums with them, defiantly. So the voices of the women were bitter against them. And they, sensing hostility, became aggressively louder and more vulgar."
~~ from Tell Freedom: Memories of Africa by Peter Abrahams
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