Living Up The Street

“What we learned from the Molinas was how to have fun, and what we taught them was how to fight. It seemed that the Sotos were inherently violent.”

For much of Soto’s childhood, he and his siblings run wild during the summers and get into a lot of physical fights. This seems to be the case for many of the neighborhood children who are left unsupervised during the summers while their parents work long hours in the nearby factories. Soto internalizes the violence in his environment and believes it’s a reflection of his ethnic roots.

“They raised their heads to watch me—or look through me, as if something were on the other side of me—and talked about our new house—the neighbors, trees they would plant, the playground down the block. They were tired from the day’s work but were happy.” 

Immediately before this moment, Soto’s father was teaching him how to water the lawn properly; shortly after, his father is hurt at work and dies. Yet in this anecdote, which is the only glimpse of Soto’s father, there is a sense of hope for the future. While every other story in the collection portrays the industrial Fresno setting as harsh, here there is a feeling of hope in the house and land that Soto’s parents owned. 

“We separated, each to a corner, where we swept them viciously with our arms—the clatter of marbles hitting the walls so loud I could not hear the things in my heart.”

Soto and his siblings are playing marbles shortly after their father died. Although Soto is devastated, he doesn’t talk about it. In fact, in almost every story in the collection, Soto doesn’t talk about his emotions very often. In this way, Soto can best be characterized as a person who acts on his feelings rather than talks about them. As a writer, Soto uses imagery and action to depict emotion.

“When I was seven years old I spent most of the summer at Romain playground, a brown stick among other brown kids. The playground was less than a block from where we lived, on a street of retired couples, Okie families, and two or three Mexican families. Just before leaving for work our mother told us—my brother Rick, sister Debra, and me—not to leave the house until after one in the afternoon, at which time I skipped off to the playground, barefoot and smiling my teeth that were uneven and without direction.”

Soto’s summers playing at the park district as a child or volunteering as a teenager are pivotal moments for him. Since his mother works long hours during the summer, the park district program provides him with a sense of community. His mother tells him he can’t leave the house until one in the afternoon because if he leaves before, he runs the risk of the authorities taking him since he and his siblings aren’t supposed to be left alone at home without adult supervision. However, his mother is a single mom and has no choice.

“One July, while killing ants on the kitchen sink with a rolled newspaper, I had a nine-year-old’s vision of wealth that would save us from ourselves. For weeks I had drunk Kool-Aid and watched morning reruns of Father Knows Best, whose family was so uncomplicated in its routine that I very much wanted to imitate it. The first step was to get my brother and sister to wear shoes at dinner.”

This is the first story where Soto views the way his family lives as less than another family’s way of life, particularly, a white family. Soto equates the way the white family on TV lives with being successful and wealthy, and he sees that he and his family aren’t living that way. He thinks that if only they can change their day-to-day habits, then they too could be rich like the families on TV.

“That evening at dinner we all sat down in our bathing suits to eat our beans, laughing and chewing loudly. Our mom was in a good mood, so I took a risk and asked her if sometime we could have turtle soup. A few days before I had watched a television program in which a Polynesian tribe killed a large turtle, gutted it, and then stewed it over an open fire. The turtle, basted in a sugary sauce, looked delicious as I ate an afternoon bowl of cereal […] My mother looked at me in bewilderment. ‘Boy, are you a crazy Mexican. Where did you get the idea that people eat turtles?’” 

Soto views his life and culture in relation to another culture and their way of life. During this time in his life, he looks at his own life and heritage as boring and desires the experiences that he sees other people living. For Soto, the idea of eating turtle soup is exciting and exotic compared to the beans and tortillas he eats every night. He also displays his association with food and wealth.

“For the first few weeks I went to church, however reluctantly, but son discovered the magazine rack at Mayfair Market, which was only two blocks from the church. I read comics and chewed gum, with only a sliver of guilt about missing Mass pricking my soul.” 

In this story, Soto’s mother forces him to go to church alone and gives him a quarter to put in the offering plate. Instead, he skips church and uses the money to buy comics and gum. He never directly lies to his mom about skipping church because she never directly asks, but he never tells her what he’s really doing. Without direct supervision, Soto, as a child, opts for immediate gratification, such as with sweets and treats, over a dedication to self-betterment. His mother, however, believes his church attendance has made him more well-behaved and later tells him he no longer needs to go. 

“Jimmy and I sat under the elm with Rosie, Raymond, Caveman and a few others, and although none of us said anything we were awed by the blond and fair-skinned kids in good clothes. They looked beautiful, I thought, with their cheeks flushed red from the morning heat. The kids stood close to their mothers and wore fancy shirts, sundresses with prints of zoos or bright balloons, and tiny hats—sailor, farm boy, or grassy things with plastic animals holding hands.” 

Soto and his friends are waiting for the park district beauty contest to start. Although Soto’s little brother is in the contest, he doesn’t have fancy clothes to wear and his mother doesn’t accompany him. In this way, this moment shows the discrepancy between Soto and his friends and the visibly more affluent white families. 

“The sad part is that I didn’t know when the league ended. As school grew to a close, fewer and fewer of the players came to play, so that there were days when we were using girls to fill the gaps. Finally one day Manuel didn’t show up with his duffle bag over his shoulder. On that day I think it was clear to us—the three or four who remained—that it was all over, though none of us let on to the others.” 

Throughout this story, the most important thing in Soto’s life is baseball. The above quote comes at the end of the story when the neighborhood league ends. There is an inherent sadness at the league’s ending, not just because Soto loves baseball so much but because the league had become a sort of family for him. Not only was Manuel a father figure for Soto, something he had been lacking ever since his father died, but he had made friendships that encouraged him to grow beyond himself for the team. 

“We all watched him flop about as Mr. Koligian shook and grew red from anger. We knew his house and, for some, it was the same one to walk home to: The broken mother, the indifferent walls, the refrigerator’s glare which fed the people no one wanted.”

Before this moment, Frankie T., the school bully, had just called Mr. Koligian, their teacher, a bad name. Mr. Koligian responds violently to Frankie’s remarks and pushes him against the school building. Even though everyone in the school is terrified of Frankie, in this moment they all feel sorry for him because they understand why he is a bully. He has an unfortunate home life, and many of the students have empathy because their home lives are similar to his.

“The summer before I entered sixth grade I decided to go to summer school. I had never gone, and it was either school or mope around the house with a tumbler of Kool-Aid and watch TV, flipping the channels from exercise programs to soap operas to game shows until something looked right.” 

Soto’s mom works full time every summer, leaving him and his siblings home alone. While summer camps have entertained Soto in the past, he decides to attend summer school instead of staying home and watching TV. This moment demonstrates a turning point for Soto. While he is usually content to stay home alone and look for trouble, here he would rather learn something than watch TV. This is also the last summer before Soto ends up working in the fields with his mom to earn money for school clothes for the following school year. In this way, it’s the last summer he’s able to enjoy being a kid without working—an inevitability of adulthood.

“It was in that class that I fell in love with my corner gal who looked like Haley Mills, except she was not as boyish. I was primed to fall in love because of the afternoon movies I watched on television, most of which were stories about women and men coming together, parting with harsh feelings, and embracing in the end to marry and drive big cars.

This moment occurs when Soto is taking summer school and he falls in love with the idea of his dance partner. Since TV is such a big part of Soto’s life, the shows he watches influence his reality and this anecdote illustrates the connection Soto makes between watching TV and his real life. In a previous story, Soto watches Polynesian tribes eating turtle soup and wants to try the exotic dish. In another, he watches white families on TV and wishes he could be well-off like them. Here, he’s been watching love stories on TV and wants to experiment with what love feels like.

“Whereas Mary had become stylish and popular, a darling among the Chicana cliques, I drifted in the opposite direction to become a hall guard who paced up and down the corridor during lunch time. For a year’s service, I earned a green ribbon that I pinned proudly to my shirt pocket that sagged like loose skin. I also earned sergeant stripes that year.”

When they were younger, Mary had a crush on Soto. But now that they’re older, she has a crush on someone else and Soto has a crush on her. However, Soto and Mary have grown in different directions. Mary is more concerned about fashion and popularity, while Soto embraces the sense of duty and purpose that being a hall guard provides. 

“A shaft of sunlight, with its orbiting dust, shone from the roof and ended in a seizure of light far on the other side, where we made out desks, chairs, counters, an open elevator, and a broken mirror on the wall, its crack running like the border between Mexico and the United States.” 

Soto and his friend Jackie have gone into an abandoned storefront. Soto makes a comment about the size of the crack “running like the border between Mexico and the United States.” This is the first time Soto explicitly references the division between Mexico and the United States, which is important considering that his parents are from Mexico, but he has grown up in the United States. 

“Next to a table stood a tree, thin as a hatrack, with only a few of its leaves moving in the breeze. But most were wilting and pale. I scanned the baseball field, the bungalows, and the school building itself. Even in the early evening the place looked dry and abandoned.”

This moment describes the scenery outside Emerson Elementary where Soto is a summer volunteer. The summer program he attended as a child was full of games, crafts, and care. This program, which only has a slip-n-slide and dominoes, appears dilapidated, as if no one cares about the children that are attending. Soto recognizes this disparity and actively plays with the children, taking on a mentor position. 

“As early as kindergarten I had to bob and weave through fights—some I won and some I had to escape holding my nose like a doorknob.” 

While Soto has spent much of his childhood getting into physical fights with his neighbors and siblings, he transforms his aggression into something positive by joining the wrestling team. This change reflects Soto’s desire to be more than a bruiser and to use his perceived inherent violence toward a more productive activity. The activity of wrestling also connects him to a community of athletes, whereas street fighting, by design, is more isolating. 

“Yesterday I saw the movie Gandhi and recognized a few of the people—not in the theater but in the film. I saw my relatives, dusty and thin as sparrows, returning from the fields with hoes balanced on their shoulders. The workers were squinting, eyes small and veined, and were using their hands to say what there was to say to those in the audience with popcorn and Cokes. I didn’t have anything, though. I sat thinking of my family and their years in the fields, beginning with Grandmother who came to the United States after the Mexican revolution to settle in Fresno where she met her husband and bore children, many of them.” 

This is the first story where Soto thinks about and explores the implications of his cultural heritage. While in previous stories Soto subtly contemplates what it means to be both Mexican and American, here he explicitly communicates that idea by making connections between the hardships faced by those in the film and his own family.

“Along with my brother and sister I picked grapes until I was fifteen, before giving up and saying that I’d rather wear old clothes than stoop like a Mexican. Mother thought I was being stuck-up, even stupid, because there would be no clothes for me in the fall. I told her I didn’t care, but when Rick and Debra rose at five in the morning, I lay awake in bed feeling that perhaps I had made a mistake but unwilling to change my mind.” 

Before this moment, Soto had picked grapes with his mother during the summers to save enough money for school clothes in the fall. Soto found the work to be grueling and boring, and by the time he’s 16, he sees the work as beneath him. He then tells his mother that he doesn’t want to “stoop like a Mexican” (106). This indicates that he views the work of his family as less than, and he wants to find a way to be better than his family’s past. 

“That spring of my sixteenth year, Rick and I decided to take a labor bus to chop cotton. In his old Volkswagen, which was more noise than power, we drove on a Saturday morning to West Fresno—or Chinatown as some call it—parked, walked slowly toward a bus, and stood gawking at the winos, toothy blacks, Okies, Tejanos with gold teeth, whores, Mexican families, and labor contractors shouting ‘Cotton’ or ‘Beets,’ the work of spring.” 

After feeling too old to help his mom pick grapes, Soto sets off to pick cotton with his brother for the summer; not only is the pay per day instead of per filled box, but he finds a sense of independence because he’s off on his own. However, as seen in the above quote, picking cotton attracts a diverse group of people who are looking to make quick yet hard-earned money. The social divide between these types of people dissolves as Soto accepts he is among them in this grueling position.

“I also sat in tires while nursing a Coke and felt dirty and sticky because I was still living on the street and had not had a real bath in over a week. Nevertheless, when the border patrol came to round up the nationals, I ran with them as they scrambled for the fence or hid among the tires behind the warehouse. The foreman, who thought I was an undocumented worker, yelled at me to run, to get away. I did just that. At the time it seemed fun because there was no risk, only a goodhearted feeling of hide-and-seek, and besides it meant an hour away from work on company time.”

Sioux children are often removed from their parents’ or grandparents’ care and placed with white foster families because social workers deem the relatives’ homes “substandard” or “too poor” (16). In this statement, Crow Dog laments the prioritizing of the material. Her criticism is made more poignant at the end of the chapter when she comments that “[w]e kids did not suffer from being poor, because we were not aware of it” (26). Furthermore, she writes that she liked her food and her shack; she “had food, love, a place to sleep, and a warm, potbellied, wood-fed stove to sit near in the winter.” She loved her grandparents and “needed nothing more” (27). Social workers rip Sioux children from their happy lives, perhaps alleviating their poverty but replacing it with a poverty of heart.

“As I kid I chopped cotton and picked grapes, so I knew work. I knew the fatigue and the boredom and the feeling that there was a good possibility you might have to do such work for years, if not a lifetime. In fact, as a kid I imagined a dark fate: To marry Mexican poor, work Mexican hours, and in the end die a Mexican death, broke and in despair.” 

Soto is at the tire job and contemplating the nature of hard, dull work and its link to what it means to be “Mexican.” Soto grew up seeing his family members work long, hard hours for little pay and with little to show for their time and effort. He fears being unable to escape the cycle of poverty that he has seen his family endure. This fear is a prominent theme throughout the collection.

“How we arrived at such a place is a mystery to me. Why anyone would stay for years is even a deeper concern. You showed up, but from where? What broken life? What ugly past? The foreman showed you the Coke machine, the washroom, and the yard where you’d work. When you picked up a tire, you were amazed at the black it could give off.” 

Soto is contemplating the ugliness of his job. He realizes he knows little to nothing about the personal lives of the men he works with, but he knows that they all share a common denominator of being cast out of society in some way. However, Soto sets himself apart from these men because most of them have been at this job for years, but he knows that he could never stand to be here long. 

“At the terminal we stood in a line of greasy people who were, in my imagination, fleeing from their own predicaments. What crimes had they committed? Burglary? Forged checks? Severe knife wounds? I studied their broken faces and the clipclop of their limps.”

Before this moment, Soto and Scott just stole Scott’s sister’s belongings. Here, they are at the bus terminal and about to flee town. Because Soto is feeling guilty about what he has done, he views everyone else as kindred to his own experience. That is, because he feels like a criminal, he sees everyone else as a criminal as well.