Drinking Coffee Elsewhere by ZZ Packer is a series of stories centered around the main character, Dina. Dina is an African-American girl who grew up in Baltimore, but who later studies at Yale doesn't like most people and has difficulty meeting and liking new people. This is probably because she is experiencing difficult events in her life. Why Dina initially isolates herself from others When Dina arrives at Yale for freshman orientation, all the freshmen are asked to play games with each other. predominantly white students. Say no to plagiarism. Get a custom essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”? Get an original essay In the next game, students are supposed to describe an object they would like to be. Not amused by the games, Dina says she would be a gun to be able to wipe everyone off the face of the earth. The Dean hears this and doesn't like her response when she plays the game. Dina responds the way she did because she hates most of the students at Yale because at one point they all owned d 'slaves. Because of this incident, Dina is forced to go to psychiatric consultation and meet with the dean every week. Later in the book, Dina hears someone knocking at her door. Dina opens the door and is greeted by a crying white girl. Dina realizes that this girl has the same poetry class as her. This girl is introduced as Heidi. When Dina asks why Heidi was crying, Heidi says it was because the boys were calling her derogatory words. Over the next few days, Heidi and Dina become relatively close friends. Heidi is a lesbian, and sometimes jokes that Dina is also a lesbian. Dina doesn't think much of Heidi's jokes, but later begins to question her sexuality. Dina and Heidi both sign up for a job as dishwashers in the dining room. The work is standard, but Dina sometimes has conflicts with the people she speaks with in the dining hall. This job brings Dina and Heidi closer each time they shift together. Later, Dina begins to question whether or not she is attracted to Heidi. That's all I'm going to say because I don't want to spoil the main events of the book. The main themes of Drinking Coffee Elsewhere are issues related to identity, race, and authority. One of the main themes is identity. Indeed, the entire book focuses on Dina and the process she goes through to find her true identity. Over the course of the book, Dina also has to deal with being African American in a predominantly white school. Dina neither likes nor respects authorities. An example of this is when the dean starts sending a counselor to Dina's dorm. Dina goes to the counselor first, but it doesn't last long. Dina starts showing up naked to make the counselor uncomfortable. It's a way for Dina to show that she doesn't want to suffer the dean's “punishments”. The dean was probably trying to help Dina, but this situation definitely didn't help Dina at all. I think it just made Dina feel more like an outcast. One of the stories in the book is called Brownies. This story is about a group of girls at a Girl Scout camp. In this camp, there are a group of African-American girls and a group of white girls. White girls are described as “babies.” The white girls also come with stuffed animals. African American girls are too big for this stuff and call other girls babies. During this.