Content Warning: This section of the guide includes discussion of enslavement, death, and violence.

After Malik loses his mother at the age of seven, he is left without a family as he goes to several different foster homes. When he goes to Louisiana for the first time, he is bitter and angry towards the family that he meets because they left him alone for a decade. He also struggles with authority figures like Taron, Antwan, and Empress because of the failure of the systems to protect and support him. However, through his newfound family, his friends, and Caiman University, he finds a sense of belonging for the first time in his life.

One key component of Malik’s development is Mama Aya and his family ancestry. Mama Aya gives Malik a home and opportunity at Caiman University, providing him with direction for the first time in his life. Central to this sense of belonging is the ancestry that Mama Aya introduces him to. She gives him memories of her parents—Miriam and Ephraim—as well as his enslaved ancestors. When he returns to the tree after Mama Aya’s death, he notes, “I’m ready. Because that little Black boy from Helena, Alabama, is no longer haunted by an outpouring of confusion, but a levee of weighted determination.