Cornelia Celeste Solomon (Cori) was born on August 30th, 1988 in Evanston, IL. She now lives in Skokie, IL with her parents Carlyle Lex Solomon (Carl) and Celeste Cecilia Wilkins Solomon, and her sister, Carmen Cecilia. Celeste is a Marketing Vice-President at Morgan Stanley Dean Witter. She travels a lot for work and contributes the most to the household income. However, Carl does run two small businesses, an insurance firm, and a low-income housing development company. The family is stable financially and thirteen-year-old Cori and fifteen-year-old Carmen get mostly everything they ask for. The year is 2001 and both Cori and Carmen are the first of their friends to receive a personal computer each. They also share a cellphone, but “only for emergencies.” The family live in a mid to upper middle class area and would consider themselves comfortable middle class.…show more content… Celeste’s family are highly educated and come from a long tradition of debutantes balls, pageants, sororities, and fraternities. Cori and her sister are expected to follow in the same traditions. Next year Carmen will prepare for her Cotillion. Carmen just wants to please her parents, but Cori loves the pageantry of it all. While Cori is not a girl who prides herself on her appearance or cares very much for the way she is perceived, she likes the security, community, and ritual that the family’s customs provide. Cori also loves to learn about her families history. Both of her parents are African-American but come from very different backgrounds. Her father’s family is from the south and has some Native-American ancestry. Her mother’s family is from the midwest and has some Jewish
