The short story helps the readers recognize racism in the world. The author uses the symbolic big dusty book as a way to express the theme of racism in the world, specifically at the border. When the two main characters are taken for inspection after answering certain questions wrongly, the officer who is a blue eyed woman that we can assume is white, brings out a book that is stored at the Canadian border. She says: “This will tell us your race” (Wolpé124) because the main character never knew his race. This book symbolizes racism because it was stored in the inspection room because the…