Liesl was the New York City born daughter of immigrants who left Germany in 1922. She often wondered where she fit in between her parents' German culture and the American culture she grew up in. A visit to Germany in 1937 during the Hitler regime caused her to feel even more alienated from her family. When she married an African-American man in 1951, against her parents' wishes, it was the latest in the conflicts between the two cultures living in one family.