When Oppertunity Strikes...

Robert Rodriguez’s’ “Aria” was published in 1982 and is an autobiographical memior of his early childhood as he was raised in a bilingual community while also dealing with his inner struggle to maintain his private cultural identity at the same time as adapting to a new public identity. At the center of these dueling spheres is language; it was something Rodriguez tied strongly with his identity and sense of self. His personal and intimate relationship with Spanish dictated his initial unenthusiastic feelings toward “gringos” and English speakers in general as expressed when he says, “The accent of los gringos was never pleasing nor was it hard to hear. Crowds at Safeway or at a bus stop would be noisy with sound. After I would be forced to edge away from the chirping chatter above me.” The word “aria,” that Rodriguez takes for the title of his story, itself means an air or melody of sounds. This word plays into the theme of his story that his native tongue of Spanish was music to his ears compared to the harsh sounds of the English speakers.

As he became more skilled and proficient in speaking English, he thought it harder to find enjoyment and an intimate connection in speaking his family’s Spanish. He, for lack of a better word, starts to forget his language because he is being discouraged from speaking Spanish, while being encouraged to speak only English within his private home sphere. The disconnect he experienced from his family that transpired from his situation gave him a sense of alienation within his own home and resonated feelings of guilt and shame. “As I grew fluent in English, I no longer could speak Spanish with Confidence,” and “I was cursed with guilt. Each time I’d hear myself addressed in Spanish, I would be unable to respond with any success,” demonstrate Rodriguez’s frustration and embarrassment he felt when trying to communicate. As a child, it must have been a confusing time in his life to be cut off completely from something that came naturally from him. Much of this guilt stems mostly from his extended family whom express shame in him for losing the ability to speak “flowing Spanish,” and nicknamed him hurtful names such as “pocho” which means colorless or bland.

I link the dishonor and embarrassment felt by Rodriguez as a child to the young school boy in Tomas Rivera’s short story “It’s That It Hurts,” from his greater novel of “The Earth Did Not Devour Him.” The “it” referred to by the title is the discrimination and shame felt by the main character towards the other children in his school. The unnamed boy knows that the school is aware that he is the son of Mexican immigrants and can use that fact as easy validation to expel him from school after getting in a fight. Unlike the young boy in Rivera’s story, Rodriguez receives encouragement from public figures (teachers) to assimilate into American Society and welcome him as he does, while receiving negative and discouraging feedback from his Mexican relatives. The contradiction between these two stories and what drew me to draw parallels between them were the similarities of parenting technique contrasted with the willingness of the child. The parents in “Aria” were always portrayed as very encouraging to the young Rodriguez while the parents in “It’s That It Hurts” are eluded to also wanting their child to stay in school to better his education in order to compete for better jobs. Both boys however, have different stances on what they want to do; Rodriguez assimilates while the young boy in Rivera’s novel would rather be in the fields with his parents. One must take in to account the different time periods that these memoirs come from, but I find it interesting to note that although they come from different periods, both sets of parents act in similar ways wanting their children to ultimately succeed. What is most interesting to me though is the source of the discrimination in the two stories.

My Question:

Is it general human nature to want our children to do better than us, or do you think there will ever be a generation of parents that act towards their children as they did toward their parents?

Woman Hollering Creek

“Cleofilas thought her life would have to be like that, like a telenovela, only now the episodes got sadder and sadder. And there were no commercials in between for comic relief. And no happy ending in sight. She thought this when she sat with the baby out by the creek behind the house. Cleofilas de…? But somehow she would have ti change her name to Topazio, or Yesenia, Cristal, Adriana, Stefania, Andrea, something more poetic than Cleofilas. Everything happened to women with names like jewels. But what happen to Cleofilas? Nothing. But a crack in the face.”

This selected passage from “Woman Hollering Creek” lends itself as an example of one of the overall themes of this story which illustrates the naïve and innocent impressions about romance and marriage. At this point in the plot, the story’s main protagonist, Cleofilas, has developed an idealistic but artificial way about thinking of these concepts due to media outlets such as her telenovelas which romanticizes everyday life and relationships.

In the first sentence, the omniscient narrator depicts Cleofilas as a dynamic character, that is, one capable of change. However, it becomes obvious that she will only achieve change when the right catalyst is added to her dire situation. In this case, it was the on-going conflict between herself and her husband, Juan Pedro, which made her realize that her life would never be like those of the glamorous woman in the telenovelas. The sentence, “And there were no commercials in between for comic relief,” portrays the state of emotional exhaustion she goes through with her everyday life. This section of the paragraph personifies a tone of despair and complete helplessness especially when the narrator says “And no happy ending in sight.” It’s as if the narrator pities Cleofilas for setting herself up so perfectly to fail to achieve an unattainable image. Cleofilas is stuck.

“But what happen to Cleofilas? Nothing. But a crack in the face.” These short clipped coupled sentences offer much to the characterization breakdown of Cleofilas. The narrator leads the reader to believe that nothing will come of Cleofilas’ fantasizing notions. Nothing, that is, except a “crack in the face.” I find the imagery of the word “crack” to be more shocking than the word scratch or bruise would be because it is an unusual way for the narrator to describe someone as if they were a statue. Maybe this was the narrator’s objective; to draw parallels between Cleofilas and a statue. In a way they are both stuck as they are with no means of escape unless helped from an outside source. I also see this “crack” as a type of chip on her shoulder. It’s location on her face represents the place her husband lashes at on her. She received this “chip” from admiring the passionate but unrealistic telenovelas  and now that she has had a dose of hard hitting reality, her entire outlook has been transformed which in turn lends itself to her character development and changing depth. The telenovelas play a huge role as a motif in this passage by symbolizing the works underlying theme of Cleofilas’ naïve views of life, yet how they also later act as a foil to her greater epiphany and change in outlook on life.

My question is to what point do you think fantasizing about something idealistic goes past the point of healthy day dreaming to something that is an unhealthy obsession such as Cleofilas with the telenovelas? Is it when you start adding yourself to the equation and give yourself false hope? Or is this false hope a good thing in which Cleofilas can hold on to in order to keep her family together? In other words, is it worth it?