Get readers started. Offer insights into coming attractions. Make us want to read and begin teaching us how to read it.
I believe that it’s important to catch the attention of the reader but there are times when the book is catchy at the beginning and then towards the middle it gets boring and the reader loses interest
I begin to suspect, though, that my complete assimilation into middle-class (?) (white) American culture is impossible, unless I lock my past away forever.
In this process of assimilation he also learned that being American and adapting into the American culture is the key to success
I think because I grew up without it, necessitous, anxiety a constant with money.
Growing up with no money gives anxiety to many. Once these children grow up they develop anxiety because they fear being poor and start saving as much money as they can to never be poor again
How many times had she reminded me how children brought her ever more suffering?
I can imagine how hard this must be for a child. Growing up knowing that you were one of the worst things that could’ve happened to your mom just because of the machismo culture
Which is to say, one day in my therapist's office I begin to tell him how much I resent the machista culture of Mexico that broke my mother's spirit, coercing her into a loveless marriage of submission to her husband.
The machismo culture has been around and will continue to be around even if we don’t like it or agree with it. Some women have to live in a marriage in which they’re forced to “love” and “respect” the person who makes them suffer and disrespects them.
Still, this feels like a kind of reinvention, now that I'm on my own, introducing myself as Joe rather than Jose, ever since a sixth-grade teacher suggested it. It's been so long, it feels natural.
He started to forget about his culture and it all started with changing his name
And a repudiation because I left my parents' side, because I didn't marry and father children, because I left to find a way out of the gay closet in that city where I hear being gay is not so bad
In Hispanic families it’s hard for children to show their real sexuality. Talking about sexuality or sex in general is still a taboo in many households.
I'm feeling like the embodiment of the American Dream, which feels like both an embrace and a repudiation of my Mexican parents' dream for their children
The American dream has always encouraged people from Latin America to immigrate to the United States with the hope of giving their children a better education and better opportunities.
I stumbled around a while, came to writing late, went off to study it. And kept writing and submitting and believing I had something important to say.
She’s basically teaching students the process of learning and aim for their dreams.
Always you are timid but curious enough to ask during the question-and-answer session at the end of the reading some variation of how did I become a writer.
A timid child but curios enough are the kind to encourage and learn from them
To my misfortune, the local elementary school I was enrolled in when I arrived in California didn't have a bilingual program or English as a Second Language (ESL) classes. Although I lived in a mostly Latino neighborhood in Los Angeles, my school lacked the necessary resources for immigrant children like me.
These are the type of situations that the government should take into consideration when they're arranging the budget for schools. Schools should have more funding to be able to afford these type of programs so that all children learn and succeed
My journey toward learning English was so traumatic that, to this day, I'm still dealing with the repercussions, not only in my career as a professional writer but also in my interactions with my own family-especially my mother and my children.
Learning a second language is hard because on the long term you start forgetting certain words in both languages.
Once my little sisterran barefoot across the hot sandfor a taste.My mother roared like the ocean,“No. No. It’s their beach.It’s their beach.”
This lat two stances demonstrate the segregation in other countries due to the tourism. Tourism helps with the economy. but it's also bad for the locals who can't enjoy these places due to them "belonging" to the tourists.
Mouths full of laughter,the turistas come to the tall hotelwith suitcases full of dollars.
Tourists enjoy what the local people can't enjoy because of the economy.
aría la vidapor diez lugares suyos, cierta gente,puertos, bosques, desiertos, fortaleza
There are many things that the author loves about their country . The love for the things inside the country is what makes it beatiful but maybe it's the government that makes the people not love the country.
I don’t love my country.
Starting with a strong and deep line. This must be because of the scarce work opportunities and violence
I am the welder.I am taking the powerinto my own hands.
To me this seems like it's a self empowering poem. He's proud of being a welder who uses his profession as a metaphor and incorporates this metaphor into his life. He understands that with heat many things are malleable and easier to change, in contrast to wanting to change things in it's regular temperature and physical state.
We plead to each other,we all come from the same rockwe all come from the same rockignoring the fact that we bendat different temperaturesthat each of us is malleableup to a point
This seems to be like a metaphor. Saying we all come from the same rock and we're all malleable up to point. Saying that we can all handle different things and not care about the harm or things other do to us until a certain point.
I look down and see new immigrants coming in,mattresses rolled up and on their shoulders,new haircuts and brogan boots,looking around, each with a dream in their heart,thinking they’ll get a chance to change their lives.
The narrator sees more people with hopes arriving to the facility. This line is important because it shows that the American dream is not real for many people, he sees that many people arrive with the hope of changing their lives but in reality they go through a lot before reaching that dream.
men are hollering back and forth cell to cell,saying their sinks don’t work,or somebody downstairs hollers angrilyabout a toilet overflowing,or that the heaters don’t work
The conditions in which the government or prison have people living in are inhuman and nobody deserves to live that way, specially when you tried to escape from that in the first place.
We came here to get away from false promises,from dictators in our neighborhoods,who wore blue suits and broke our doors downwhen they wanted, arrested us when they felt like,swinging clubs and shooting guns as they pleased.But it’s no different her
Immigrants come to the United States looking for better opportunities and a refuge but instead they get disappointed because its nothing like they imagined.
ut right away we are sent to work as dishwashers,to work in fields for three cents an hour.The administration says this is temporarySo we go about our business, blacks with blacks,poor whites with poor whites,chicanos and indians by themselves.The administration says this is right,no mixing of cultures, let them stay apart,like in the old neighborhoods we came from
This demonstrates that the American dream is not real for many immigrants. A lot of them are discriminated because of their ethnicity and others because they don't speak English and can't defend themselves.
hey talked about rehabilitation,about being able to finish school,and learning an extra good trade
The "American Dream." Many people come to the United States looking for better opportunities but some are received in the worst way possible.
Our expectations are high: in the old world,
Is Mexico the old world? or what is it referring to when it talks about the old world?
t the gates we are given new papers,our old clothes are takenand we are given overalls like mechanics wear
At the border people have to change their entire life including "where they are from."
Immigrants in our own Lands
Is this referring to when texas was part of Mexico and that the people inside this state now feel like they dont belong?
maybe I look like a bitch, probably because that’s what I am.
Now a days many people use the word "bitch" to refer to different types of people. Some girls use it to refer to their friends, others to show when someone is being rude.
reminds me of when I have to reach right down inside me, right into the fleshy hurt and let it come inching out–then bursting out by way of laugh/cry, and cry
She uses this word to release her true feelings. When she's sad she uses this word to feel relieved
I kind of like the sound of bitch– such a word. seems to leap right off the tongue:
The author makes this use of this word as a simple word meaning no harm.
pero eso sí, compiras,’no quiero regresar.
I wonder where he doesn't want to go back to, prison? or perhaps the outside world?
yet within i’ll hurtremembering xmas packagesand letters full of pain;recalling those sad momentswhen night became the coverletand darkness filtered songs,when all alone i’d dierealizing just how sordida prison life can be . . .
Living outside of prison you get to see and experience the joy of Christmas and being in prison you be satisfied with letters and a phone call from your loved ones.
hat say that we are savage; i’ll laugh at mean ass convicts who terrify the worldyet love to eat ice cream,
Convicts are regular people who love and feel the same way as any other human, the only difference is that they did something wrong in their life, something they have to pay society for.
jagged prison world where hate is a common expletive, seems everyone hates, seems everyone is a convict, even the guards and counselors do time here, everyday trudging into this abysmal human warehouse.
Prisons are a sad place for everyone, specially convicts who are there for many years. The people working there know a lot about the life inside a prison since they're there for a long period of time.
Soledad Guerra, solitude and war,and she used to always smilecon ternura morenacomo su pie
Describing the girl and her name is a loving way, as if the narrator is in love with her.
Quiero ser tuya. Only yours. Only you.Quiero amarte. Atarte. Amarrarte.Love the way a Mexican woman loves. Letme show you. Love the only way I know how.
She's generalizing the way all Mexican women love but this seems like a toxic way of loving someone and in a way forcing them to stay next to you.
All you saints, blessed and terrible,Virgen de Guadalupe, diosa Coatlicue,I invoke you
Referring to different cultural goddesses to maybe show the different cultures she would reach to to be with the person she loves and will do anything to keep him with her.
I could kill in the name of you and thinkit worth it.
The "Love" and attachment she has for this person seems to be more toxic rather than doing things out of love.
I claim you all mine,arrogant as Manifest Destiny.
Manifest Destiny was a belief that the colonies should expand and that the entire land was destined to be part of the United States. In the poem she believes that her lover is kust for her and nobody else.
The Mexico City ‘85 earthquake in me.
This earthquake was the most fatal earthquake in Mexico's history. Many died and also left many injured. She's using this phrase to convey how in love she is and also the damage is creating. She's so in love that at the same time this love brings out her bad side.
The berrinchuda, bien-cabrona in me
Latinas and Hispanic women have always been seen as a strict woman who must be obey and will do anything to get what they want, including being "berrinchuda."
The eagle and serpent in me
The symbol of the eagle and the serpent are important to the history of Mexico because this was later used as a National Emblem
You bring out the Dolores del Río in me.
Dolores del Rio was the First Mexican Actress recognized by Hollywood.
The tequila lágrimas on Saturday allthrough next weekend Sunday
It's common for people in Mexico to drink a lot in the weekends. Tequila is used to "heal" a person from a certain problem like cheating or death of a loved one.