A Long Line of Vendidas (Week 7)

Cherríe Moraga’s A Long Line of Vendidas caught my attention not only with its casual mention of fantasizing about gunning down oppressors, but with how it begins with referring to race as sex. “MY BROTHER’S SEX WAS WHITE. MINE, BROWN,” (page 425). I found it interesting that she does this, rather than describe his race as white. The point she makes about him being able to present as white because of his lighter skin tone compared to hers could still have been made regardless. Perhaps the reason Moraga chose to write it this way was to call attention to the sex component of their identities, equating it to race and making it clear that she is the most disadvantaged on both ends, being a woman and more clearly dark in her complexion. The story makes a strong point about the brother is unable to sympathize with the plights she suffers not only because he benefits from her subjugation, but because he has unconsciously identified with the oppressors, and to acknowledge that alignment could bring about a guilt he might not want to deal with. I know I used to be the kind of person who would try to ignore any problem that I could not feel the direct effects of, though I have thankfully grown out of that egocentric mindset and have refined my ability to feel for others. I’m also reminded of how chores were handled around my house growing up, and have always held a slight suspicion that it might be gendered in nature. I haven’t actually confirmed whether or not there is a gender component to how chores were distributed, and I do have good reason to believe that the situation with my sister and I was more of an individual matter than a systemic one. Still, I’m not too sure about either.

The Mechanics of Men (Week 8)

I do not remember why I initially felt that David Tomas Martinez’s The Mechanics of Men poem was potentially about how male gender roles are forced on boys against their will. The narrator came off to me as a rather sensitive person whose interests are traditionally considered feminine. However, he does express interest in traditionally masculine activities. Upon rereading it, I found that my first interpretation felt almost entirely off base. If anything, the narrator seems to embrace masculinity wholeheartedly, even if he’s not the most apt at masculine activity. “I have never been the most mechanically inclined of men. Wrenches, screwdrivers, or shovels have never made nice with me.” I think I might have come to my initial interpretation because I noticed a reference to the Biblical Esau and Jacob. Esau and Jacob were twin brothers, and while Esau was a manly hunter who was favored by their father Isaac, Jacob was the softer brother and more of an intellectual bookworm who their mother Rebekah favored. Perhaps the allusion to the brothers is what prompted me to think about the narrator as a boy being forced to conform to the role of a man. It escaped my attention that the narrator does not directly compare himself to Jacob, but rather, considers himself an inverse of Esau. “And I am not mad for being the second favorite son, Esau turned inside out. Can’t regret saying that summer, I was, in fact, already, a bigger and better man than my father because I understood more.” Still, his lines at the end about how he looks up to his brother and “favored my brother’s way of living, of skating in the park and smoking weed while I studied and wondered for us all,” might lend some credence to my first interpretation. How does the narrator feel about himself and his placement in gender roles, I wonder?

When I Was Puerto Rican (Week 9)

When I Was Puerto Rican by Esmerelda Santiago is an autobiographical piece, and as such my usual approach of dissecting and analyzing the creative decisions made in it cannot be applied to it as smoothly as they can be applied to a fictional story, since her story actually happened and is not a fabrication of her imagination. However, I can still discuss the impact this reading had on me personally. Reading this, I realized that shared personal experiences can go a long way to helping a reader relate to a character’s or person’s experiences that the reader themselves have not faced. For me, racism and the cultural friction like what Santiago went through in her childhood never had a noticeable impact on me, and I have trouble relating to stories about the racism people suffer when I myself have little experience with it, even if my sense of sympathy lets me feel for them. With Santiago, a specific aspect of her life that I can relate to enabled me to relate better to her other experiences that I have not faced. Specifically, when she learned that her father had an affair and a child with another woman. I had learned of something similar myself a few years ago. Santiago’s innocent desire to meet her newfound half-sister also mirrors my own wish to meet the half-siblings I never knew about before. Similarly, it helps me relate a little better with her experiences of being affected by strictly traditional gender roles and sexist double standards, the disadvantages of which I have had the privilege of largely avoiding since I am male. Race has held very little salience to my personal identity, so having a shared experience with Santiago lets me connect to her racial struggles in a way I otherwise could not.

(Unfortunately, I do not have access to the rest of the book beyond the first half, as the copy I was reading in the library has been checked out by someone else.)