This sentence is so powerful. It strikes and emotional response. I feel bad for her, yet proud of her.

This sounds like it would be an interesting read.

This is something that gets me in trouble with writing, thinking someone should just know it typically leads me the wrong way.

I have never heard this term before...learned something new!

I have never thought of reading a book like this. It rings true. I good book can captivate you for days on end. The author is asking for us to hear their art and we pay for that art with our time...and money

Art will tell the true story that historians chose to leave out.

I love this so much. Its so true.

Though I wouldn't agree with the way the artist went about his message they were trying to convey with this particular art, I do see the beauty in such disrespect. I think it represents that the ideal of Jesus isn't received by everyone the same. There are others that think and feel differently about pretty much any thing in life...that is beautiful.

Since beauty is in the eye of the beholder how can it be used a measurement of success when it comes to art, there is no true standard of beauty.

I guess the saying beauty is in the eye of the beholder really rings true here....I do not think its beautiful to allow a stranger to hurt you...it concerns me that someone would allow themselves to have that done to them.

I feel for him. Having to go through this and be so embarrassed while his sisters get to have new clothes.

This is so unfair and would just leave those girls to grow up and be spoiled self-centered adults.

ewww

Having to choose to succeed in the new country your mother brought you to or doing as your mother wishes must have been so hard for her. The more successful she was in the American culture the further she drifted from her mother

It is because of her mother coming to America that allows her to the opportunity to not be like her. I can understand seeing your parents struggle and knowing deep in your soul you never want to be like them and feeling ashamed to feel that way.

Such a beautiful line.

This has to be so frustrating. Bursting with such intellect and being treated so worthless.

Put in the corner as if in trouble or made to feel ashamed. So much psychological abuse.

THIS part. It was the school that had the problem. Blinded by racist views and unjustified hatred for a culture they didn't understand or care to understand. To treat a person let alone a child so inhuman simply for speaking another language is frustrating. Teachers and schools are their to teach, and they should have unbiasedly done so.

This made feel so deeply sad for this child and makes me angry. Reminds me of what my father said would happen to him when he was in school. He would get punished for speaking Spanish.

I like this because for them she is willing to let all other love interest go. To surrender my one-woman house...she is willing to allow them into her peace. She is independent does not need someone to live her life, but instead wants them and is wiling to give up some of the independence in order to have the relationship.

They are put down in every part of their life. In their neighborhood there oppressed by police officers that can beat or kill them as they please, something that still goes on. In prison they are left there to rot. There is not good health care, no education, no sense of reason to be better.

Its a place that not even people that are paid to be there want to be, the description of "human warehouse" sticks out the most. There is not getting better or working on your self...your just there in your cell stacked on top of each other.

This one kind of hits home. As life goes on and gets more and more complicated looking back at the easier times or childhood and the good times and the feeling of not worrying. Easy to think of just wanting to go back to a neighborhood or a home to get a glimpse of that feeling just for a bit, almost like if you get there things will be better. But as time moves on nothing stays the same, you childhood safe place exist only in your memory.

I liked this section... the art of Egypt is considered so important to the world, but in a world that over looks this culture, the art from their neighbor hood is what speak to the and is more meaningful.

Feliz is free; she is happy, something Cleofilas hasn't felt in a long time. In the car ride Cleofilas is quiet and to herself as she has had to be for so long. When she finally does laugh she doesn't even realize it is her. It comes as a surprise to herself...the laughter flows out of her like a long ribbon...a long laugh. Water is strong and like the river its free to go where is pleases...the laughter represents her freedom to be happy again.

I read this in a sarcastic tone. She is disappointed in the man he is. He is not what the ideal of a loving man or a husband she imagined for herself.

Seems like he is verbally abusive as well. The last line of this paragraph, comparing his fist to dogs that chase their tail. There is no solution, there is not a time that when he is done beating her it will be enough. He takes his anger out on her, an anger that will never be calmed. Just as a dog will never catch his tail.

The last line, symbolizes just as the dresses go back in the closet so must they. Though they love each other they can only love each other in secret. My heart hurts for them.

This part! So much emotion. Rio is desperately in love with him and no matter how much time has gone by his love was as true and strong at 14 as it now. Rio believes they are suppose to be together. The line "It took this long to find someone that could love the rest of you out of me" Man, He wanted to destroy Rio...I think he accomplished just that with that one line. His love for Rio was once as deep, but it is not longer. He has been replaced in his heart. He has moved on and Rio needs to too.

I like how it ended. He didn't want his mom chasing after yet another fantasy. He knows Roque love his mother and would be there for them both. All he cared about was the moment and he magic that day gave him.

Its all he could do as a child. To look at the one person he has known for some kind of guidance . I can imagine his little face just sad and scared and looking to her with pleading, scared and saddened eyes. Poor child.

His father knew the life he was living was not a good one, and maybe wanted more for his own life, but didn't feel deserving or like he could. He didn't want that life for his son. There is something so poetic about that. He loved his son more than he loved himself. He was just to broken to show it the "traditional" way.

He mentions being hit by his father, but then the last line is as if through all his father's faults, and there were a lot, he understands that his father was a broken man and loved him in the only ways he could or knew how. He appreciated and loved him for being there for him when no one else was.

This paragraph stood out the most to me in this story. When he says that he wouldn't have a scar on his face, "That's not where I would keep it." This moment left a scar on his heart and his mind. He will never forget the way that moment made him feel and he will never completely heal from that pain and disappointment of his father. The one that was suppose to be his protector.

He finally comes to terms with the sadness and loss life has given him. He knows he can shut out the pain of his past and has come to terms he will carry it with him as he will carry the memories, but life will keep moving on and keep being beautiful.

The simplicity of this line, shows so much emotion, sadness, disbelief, acceptance.

The emotion this line gives expresses how a once forbidden love still is with in him and that love gives him a sense of peace...like home would give.

"I am Aztec prince and Christin Christ". Joaquin does not deny his lineage, his veins contain both the warrior and the conquer. He IS the story of this land. No matter what label you put on him, it doesn't change what has made him, he refuses to leave his culture to conform to what society thinks he should be. He is his people, he is his culture, his culture is us.

Joaquin speaks of how his culture has been beat down and conquered in wars for hundreds of years. Still, remains the pride of the Kings and Chiefs that run through his veins. That even though as a culture they may have been reduced to subordinates to the Europeans that may have "conquered" and taken from his ancestors, the pride of his people still lives within him. The Europeans may have conquered the land and the economy but not his spirit.

Joaquin describes the feeling of hope in a hopeless state. The mother prays for her child endless just as the hard labor is endless.

This was one of the most powerful sections for me of the whole poem. "My knees are caked with mud. My hands calloused from the hoe" There is a tone of bitterness, exhaustion, and resentment towards the Anglo. He goes on to say the hard labor of the people who once were the rulers of the land, the ancestors of kings and chiefs have been reduced to hard labor only for the Anglo to reap the award. His culture left in the lines for welfare or locked in jails. Seemly stating the once proud culture had been reduced to what some would consider to be lower class. The consequence of the land being stolen through unjust wars and unjust laws. The reader can really feel the frustration, sadness, and anger.