Bring Different isn't so bad.. Look at SpongeBob!!!

A commonality in Thomas Rivera’s And the Earth Did Not Devour Him and Richard Rodriguez’s Aria is the theme of inclusion. Both stories take a look at Mexican American children’s experiences in school and the adversity they face in a predominately Caucasian school system.

In Rivera’s semi-autobiographical novel, the narrator (Rivera) tells how he is treated differently simply because he is of Mexican heritage. When he is just starting school young Rivera is forced to be checked for lice and the teachers and children judge the boy just for being Mexican. “Everybody just stares at you up and down. And then they make fun of you and the teacher with her popsicle stick, poking your head for lice. It’s embarrassing. And then they turn up their noses.” Rivera is treated as a zoo animal, being checked for lice to deem him fit for their presence. He is never treated as an equal to the other children and the teachers assume Rivera is unclean and dirty just because he is Mexican. He talks about how he is pulled aside and made to undress completely for the school nurses so they could check his body for lice and perhaps diseases. Not only did the adults treat Rivera as a second class citizen, but so did the Caucasian children. “I don’t like Mexicans because they steal. You hear me?” Mexicans were perceived in a negative light and the assumptions were passed on to the children. Rivera is picked on and treated badly because the children were told that all Mexicans were degenerates. They accepted this claim at face value rather than getting to know Rivera for who he actually is as a human.

In Rodriguez’s story Aria, he shares his personal experiences in a school of the rich upper class white children. He does not speak of being bullied or ridiculed by his teachers, rather Rodriguez explains that he felt disconnected with the English based society of the gringos and was afraid to make English his dominant language. “But I couldn’t believe that the English language was mine to use. (In part, I did not want to believe it.)… Silent, waiting for the bell to sound, I remained dazed, diffident, afraid.” Richard does not feel he is the same as the other children, he is different. His home life is filled with Spanish words and his own culture while in school everything is new. He is unsure about this new word and at the end of the day he wishes only to retreat back home where everything makes sense. Schooling for Rodriguez is strange and new because he does not come from the background of the other students. He is disconnected from the school mostly because the language and atmosphere are so different from his own personal experiences at home. “At last, seven years old, I came to believe what had been technically true since my birth: I was an American citizen.” Through attending a Caucasian school Rodriguez is about to connect and immerse himself into American culture. He no longer identifies himself with being Mexican, but has found a place for himself in the American society.  

In both stories the young boys have problems immersing themselves in the gringo society. Rivera is forced to be separated from the white children simply because of how Mexicans are viewed. He is not allowed a chance to be anything other than another lice ridden Mexican. Rodriguez felt too different from the gringos to fully accept their society as a child. He did not feel as if he belonged in a predominately white society and shied away from including himself. In both cases the boys’ culture has an impact on how well they can fit into the Caucasian society. Would the inclusion process have been different if the ratio of white to Mexican children had been 50/50? Were they boys’ lack of inclusion because they were severely outnumbered by the white children? 

Over there by Woman Hollering Creek I think I saw Scooby-Doo!!!

This man who farts and belches and snores as well as laughs and kisses and holds her. Somehow this husband whose whiskers she finds each morning in the sing, whose shoes she must air each evening on the porch; this husband who cuts his fingernails in public, laughs loudly, curses like a man, and demands each course of dinner be served on a separate plate like at his mother’s, as soon as he gets home, on time or late, and who doesn’t care at all for music or telenovelas or romance or roses or the moon floating pearly over the arroyo, or through the bedroom window for that matter, shut the blinds and go back to sleep, this man, this father, this rival, this keeper, this lord, this master, this husband till kingdom come.

In the passage from Woman Hollering Creek by Sandra Cisneros the tone is one of resentment and describes Cleofilas’ resignation about her situation. The author uses syntax to have the passage resemble a woman’s rant. The long run-on sentence that is almost the entire passage is similar to the passionate women in the telenovelas Cleofilas emulates. The narrator uses dramatic/indirect presentation to characterize her husband, his actions describes the character as we never actually hear him speak.

The first sentence describes her husband as appalling as well as loving, yet as the description continues her husband is being described as the antagonist to Cleofilas. The contrast in the beginning can be seen as a representation of Cleofilas when she enters the marriage. She has an idea of how things are going to turn out and she is brutally forced to see the reality of her situation. As the rant continues the reader witnesses Cleofilas finally seeing her husband for who he actually is instead of the fantasy version she fashioned from the media she surrounded herself with.  He is oppressive and controlling towards Cleofilas; this is especially seen in the diction of the last few phrases: “rival”, “keeper”, “lord”, and “master”. The narrator uses unflattering words throughout the passage such as “curses” and “demands” when in relation to the husband, causing the husband to be personified as an ogre like creature.

When the passage starts the narrator is describing as “her husband”, yet towards the end of the passage the narrator takes on a detached description using “this husband”. The narrator is trying to distance herself from the situation she is in, she does not wish for the husband she married anymore and resigns herself to her situation especially seen through the last phrase in the passage, “this husband till kingdom come”. The kingdom come is talking about heaven and God, the passage has two meanings for the reader. One is that she is stuck with her husband until her death, she made and choice and now must live with her decisions. Another meaning the phrase can take is that it would take a miracle from God to help her out of her situation.

Control is a major theme of the passage; Cleofilas “must” air out the shoes, her husband “demands” things from her. Cleofilas’ seems to recognize that through all her husbands’ controlling way and his attempt to mold her into the perfect wife, she will never be what he wants just as her husband will never be her desired. Through the phrase “like his mother’s” the reader can understand what the husband’s ideal woman would be like. Yet from across the border Cleofilas came from another culture and cannot be like his mother. She reinforces the idea that she cannot be his perfect woman by afterwards describing what she holds ideal, telenovelas and romance. The author also choses to use words in Spanish to illustrate that Cleofilas may live in America, but she will always be from across the border. This is not her home or culture. Was culture and customs one of the main problems between Cleofilas and Juan? If the story of Woman Hollering Creek was told in Juan’s perspective on Cleofilas, would his actions be justified? Could his actions simply be how he was raised to treat women or did his actions come from a direct disdain for Cleofilas?