Author Archives: Syndicated User

Down These Mean Streets: “Pops… you love us all the same, right?”

In reading the first half of Down These Mean Streets I recognized a major theme that was apparent in every single chapter: belonging. In the beginning chapters, there is a constant reaffirmation that Piri feels like his father does not treat him (or even love him) the same as his siblings. He wants his father’s attention and affection but feels he is deprived of it. Growing out of the prepubescent stage of his life, he proceeds to take the streets and looks for his reputation and cred within groups and gangs. At times, he has a sense of belonging with his amigos but the struggle of racial identity bleeds through the pages, especially in the last couple of chapters. Though there are two major conflicts within the first half of the book, I want to discuss and analyze Piri’s struggle for acceptance from his father as I believe it lays a crucial framework for future chapters and displays the importance of finding where one belongs.

As soon as the book begins, we are confronted with Piri’s father lashing his son with his belt revealing the cold relationship that Piri and his Poppa have. Though the book often drifts to life on the street, whether visualizing junkies lighting up or understanding Piri’s 12-year-old ‘gang’, the divide between Piri and his father is clearly emphasized. When Poppa comes home one day, Piri thinks to himself why they are always “on the outs” with one another and how his dad sounds “harder and meaner” when addressing him. As Piri thinks to himself, “how come when we all get hit for doing something wrong, I feel it the hardest,” this reaffirms the straightforward yet upsetting relationship that Piri and Poppa have. Despite this, the cold relationship with his father doesn’t demotivate Piri but rather invigorates his courage and toughness in the streets. As he scraps with an Italian boy, Tony, Piri forces himself to keep fighting and to keep throwing punches; showing his father that he “ain’t gonna cop out” and that he is “a fighter, too.”

However, this constant need for compassion from his father is not fruitless as Poppa, seeing Piri displaying his breath-holding skills in the bath one day, says to his son, “I bet you could be a great swimmer.” This small, seemingly insignificant detail boosts Piri’s confidence, surely feeding his desire for acceptance, but yet more words of affirmation are given when Piri has gravel thrown in his eyes. When Piri is taken to the hospital, he and his father have a profound conversation, one that both Piri and the reader were longing for. As Poppa promises his son a pair of roller skates when he gets out of the hospital, Piri shows his father how tough he is; enduring the pain of tar in his eyes. The conversation draws to a close when his father leaves the room, but not before saying, “Son… you’re un hombre.” With that line, Piri feels proud that he has earned the respect and admiration of his father, something that he had been malnourished from for all his life. It’s with this scene at the hospital that his father acknowledges Piri’s strength, the two have a meaningful conservation, and both display a sincere appreciation for one another. Though most of the book touches on the conflict of racial identity and inclusion in a societal context, I believe that Piri’s emotional journey of finding acceptance and compassion from his father constructs an unforgettable plight, showing how the ones we value the most can deprive us of the very thing we need to survive; love and a sense of belonging.

-Curtis HR

Down These Mean Streets (Part 1)

I am really enjoying this novel so far!  I am particularly interested in the character of Piri’s mother, and the role that identity/being an hombre plays.  So far, Piri’s mother is the most interesting character in my opinion; she has so much personality, and clearly lots of heart (I believe there are many things that make up having “heart” in this novel, and I am sure we will discuss in class).  The love she has for her children is evident in every interaction she has with them, and as the events unfold in the novel, she is faced with situations that would rip apart any mother apart. She also comforts her children in ways that the father could never, and even keeps secrets from him; for example Piri says: “The bad-o feeling came back.  About Poppa not knowing I’d cut out from home, and Momma worrying cause she knew.” (5). The relationship between Piri and his mother is incredibly important to Piri’s well-being and ability to cope with the day to day battles; without her I think Piri would be completely lost. The subtle comments he makes about his mother just show how much he trusts her, and I would argue, how much he really needs her:  “I joined her and we just laughed and laughed.  I kissed her and went into the back room feeling her full-of-love words floating after me.” (19).  Piri then says: “Caramba, it was great to see Momma happy.  I’d go through the rest of making the funnies if I was sure Momma would be happy.” (19).  It’s almost as if they have this understanding of each other that nobody will ever be able to understand or compete with; their relationship truly is special.  It is a sharp contrast to the relationship Piri has with his father, however.  

Moving onto the idea of being an hombre, something Piri said that interested me is the following: “But there was still the good WPA.  If a man was poor enough, he could dig a ditch for the government. Now Poppa was poor enough again” (8).  Not only does this emphasize the uncertainty and unpredictability of day to day life back then, to me it also suggests something about Poppa.  We learn later that Poppa hates his job with the WPA, and part of me thinks this is because he feels he’s failing to be an hombre; as if he is failing both himself and his family by not holding a steady job, etc. 

As for the topic of identity, one thing that stood out to me was this idea of turning on and off identities, depending on the particular situation.  For example, when Piri meets Rocky on the Italian block, Rocky asks him: “What nationality are ya?” (24). Piri then stares at him and “wondered which nationality to pick” (24).  Piri knows that due to his skin colour, people are going to have preconceived thoughts; and in a way, he knows that if he says he’s Puerto Rican, he’s going to be given a hard time.  However, he still chooses to do so. During this particular encounter, Rocky and Piri start throwing punches, and after the fight Piri ends up lying on the floor dizzy and all, and he says: “I just hoped my face was cool-looking”.  I noticed multiple comments throughout this first half that are related to the one just mentioned; it seems this is one if the ways in which he shows he’s an hombre, by not showing he’s hurt, not showing any signs of defeat, etc.  Clearly Piri is still just figuring everything, and this transitional phase between boy and hombre is a key point in this novel.  

I’m also interested in this connection between having heart and being an hombre; it seems to me that having heart in this novel has to do with the desire to belong, and doing what it takes to do so.  Being an hombre too, however, is also about belonging; but more so belonging to a role/identity that one is expected to take on.    

 

Down These Mean Streets (Part 1)

I’m really enjoying this book so far – so much so that it has been hard for me to put the book down and tackle the other work I have to do. I think one of the more obvious themes is the concept of race and identity. At surface, this may seem as a simple story; a story – or perhaps more appropriately deemed as a memoire – of the life and transformation of a young, Puerto Rican boy trying to find his place in the world. However, I think this book as a whole is unusual and complicated – a “kink”, if you will.

Most memoires about race in the USA are centred around the African American experiences. I, for one, haven’t read, about the experiences of Puerto Ricans (or other races for that matter) during this time, prior to this class. This seems like a kink in and of itself – a dark skinned, Puerto Rican boy telling his story in insane detail of his experience in an American world. Thus far, it has been a constant search for the young boy’s identity – he is stuck in the middle. He has a fair skinned mother, but a dark father. He is told by the many he is black, wants to be white, and yet, he is neither. His sense of insecurity and uncertainty of who he is and how that differs from who he wants to be is demonstrated in how he constantly compares himself to others:

 “I wondered if it was too mean to hate your bothers a little for looking white like Momma. I felt my hair – thick, black and wiry. Mentally I compared my hair with my brothers’ hair. MY face screwed up at the memory of the jillion tons of stickum hair oils splashed down in a vain attempt to make it like theirs. I felt my nose. “Shit, it ain’t so flat,” I said aloud. But mentally I measured it against my brothers’, whose noses were sharp, straight and placed neat-like in the middle of their paddy fair faces. Why did this have to happen to me? Why couldn’t I be born like them?”

Although he compares himself with his mother and siblings in this way, his father is different; Piri and his father seem to be considered outsiders to their family, and society in general. Piri even references their “peters”, stating how his two brothers have white peters and the “only ones got black peters is Poppa and me, and Poppa acts like his is white, too”. He goes on to say that “if I’m a Negro, then you and James is one too. And that ain’t leavin’ out Sis and Poppa. Only Momma’s an exception.” This is interesting, because it calls into question of decent, while also hinting at the patriarchy of the world; it’s not the mother who passed down the blackness, it’s the father, and the whiteness of the mother does not negate or “rescue” the blackness of her husband in the family, nor his position in society. It’s interesting to ponder that if his mother were dark-skinned and the husband fair-skinned, if their lives would have been the same or dramatically different during this time in history. To me,  this distinction seems quite deliberate as Piri quite frequently references his Mom’s lighter complexion and his father’s darker skin. The purpose? I’m not 100% sure.

Down These Mean Streets: To be or not to be


I don’t know where to begin. On some levels I feel like I can relate to Piri but on others I can’t. I have so many thoughts on the matter and am deeply impressed by his accounts. The last time I had this sort of “gut reaction” in reading a book was when I read the Kite Runner. I have had a sheltered and happy upbringing compared to what is being portrayed in the book, so I can’t fully understand these struggles completely. Having said this, I wanted to put to paper some of the thoughts I have on the main themes of the book. As a title for this blog post, I refer to Shakespeare's Hamlet. This question "to be or not to be" holds value in all aspects of life, and in the context of this book it ties in with identity, recognition, life, death, nationhood, manhood, and many more. 

After reading the first part I went back to the prologue. I think the entirety of it can be tied into that short prologue “I’m here, and I want recognition, whatever that mudder-fuckin word means” and “I’m a skinny dark-face, curly-haired, intense Porty-Ree can – Unsatisfied, hoping, and always reaching.” I think this first part, up until the point where Piri goes South, presents us with the earlier years in his quest for identity. In experiencing humiliation and trauma, he began to set himself apart from others. First he felt discrimination towards his ‘in-group’ his family and friends. When they moved to the Italian quarter they became ‘Spics’ versus ‘Italians’. When the family moved to long island he faced racial discrimination for the first time, at least as he recalls it, and this was something he experienced alone. This defied his self-confidence, and since he wasn’t in the Barrio, there was no support/pillar to lean on while processing this new ‘discovery’. His own family was ‘white’. Being Puerto Rican made them ‘white’. In chapter 15 Piri says he’s the only one “who(‘s) found out!” and later he tells his mom he has hatred for his family’s “colour kick (…) for trying to show what’s not inside”. He hates his family for living a lie, for having let him live that lie. I think this “kick” is one of the ‘kinks’.

The way race is twisted and mixed into nationality and ethnicity is a kink. Being Puerto Rican meant being white for his family, and for Piri, at a certain point, being black meant that he wasn’t Puerto Rican (leading to his moving South).  Chapter 16 is titled Funeral for a Prodigal Son, in this chapter Piri leaves his family. He chooses to disassociate from them and their conception of life. This title in itself is a kink. The story of the prodigal son is one of return and reintegration in the family where there is a great feast held in the name of a repentant son. However, in this case, Piri comes to terms with his reality and chooses to leave, there is no feast, no repentance. There are no more childhood illusions of living by Central Park, no more dreams of being a millionaire, he needs to go South to find where he truly belongs. Maybe it is a funeral from his family’s perspective. His parents had lost a son and now they were ‘losing’ another one. And being a ‘prodigal son’ in Piri’s eyes might be related to the fact that he was once lost and now has found, what he thinks to be, the truth and his true destiny. 

Down These Mean Streets: To be or not to be


I don’t know where to begin. On some levels I feel like I can relate to Piri but on others I can’t. I have so many thoughts on the matter and am deeply impressed by his accounts. The last time I had this sort of “gut reaction” in reading a book was when I read the Kite Runner. I have had a sheltered and happy upbringing compared to what is being portrayed in the book, so I can’t fully understand these struggles completely. Having said this, I wanted to put to paper some of the thoughts I have on the main themes of the book. As a title for this blog post, I refer to Shakespeare's Hamlet. This question "to be or not to be" holds value in all aspects of life, and in the context of this book it ties in with identity, recognition, life, death, nationhood, manhood, and many more. 

After reading the first part I went back to the prologue. I think the entirety of it can be tied into that short prologue “I’m here, and I want recognition, whatever that mudder-fuckin word means” and “I’m a skinny dark-face, curly-haired, intense Porty-Ree can – Unsatisfied, hoping, and always reaching.” I think this first part, up until the point where Piri goes South, presents us with the earlier years in his quest for identity. In experiencing humiliation and trauma, he began to set himself apart from others. First he felt discrimination towards his ‘in-group’ his family and friends. When they moved to the Italian quarter they became ‘Spics’ versus ‘Italians’. When the family moved to long island he faced racial discrimination for the first time, at least as he recalls it, and this was something he experienced alone. This defied his self-confidence, and since he wasn’t in the Barrio, there was no support/pillar to lean on while processing this new ‘discovery’. His own family was ‘white’. Being Puerto Rican made them ‘white’. In chapter 15 Piri says he’s the only one “who(‘s) found out!” and later he tells his mom he has hatred for his family’s “colour kick (…) for trying to show what’s not inside”. He hates his family for living a lie, for having let him live that lie. I think this “kick” is one of the ‘kinks’.

The way race is twisted and mixed into nationality and ethnicity is a kink. Being Puerto Rican meant being white for his family, and for Piri, at a certain point, being black meant that he wasn’t Puerto Rican (leading to his moving South).  Chapter 16 is titled Funeral for a Prodigal Son, in this chapter Piri leaves his family. He chooses to disassociate from them and their conception of life. This title in itself is a kink. The story of the prodigal son is one of return and reintegration in the family where there is a great feast held in the name of a repentant son. However, in this case, Piri comes to terms with his reality and chooses to leave, there is no feast, no repentance. There are no more childhood illusions of living by Central Park, no more dreams of being a millionaire, he needs to go South to find where he truly belongs. Maybe it is a funeral from his family’s perspective. His parents had lost a son and now they were ‘losing’ another one. And being a ‘prodigal son’ in Piri’s eyes might be related to the fact that he was once lost and now has found, what he thinks to be, the truth and his true destiny. 

Down These Mean Streets I

thomas_mean-streets2The story Piri Thomas tells in his memoir Down These Mean Streets is a story of cultural and ethnic confusion. Thomas, the US-born dark-skinned son of Puerto Rican immigrants, grows up in a multicultural and multilingual Harlem marked by “the roar of multicolored kids, a street blend of Spanish and English with a strong tone of Negro American” (121). Everyone lives cheek-by-jowl, and yet the streets are also carved up into jealously-guarded territorial units. The family moves three blocks, from 111th to 114th Street, and they find themselves on “Italian turf” (24). Immediately picked on by the local gang of Italian kids, Piri wins their respect by obeying a cross-cultural code of omertà and not squealing on them when things go too far and a fight ends up with him half-blinded and in hospital. He has passed a rite of passage, and it turns out that “Italianos wouldn’t be so bad if they spoke Spanish” (39).

However “mean” these Manhattan streets are, they are infinitely preferable to the Long Island suburbs to which the family move later: “a foreign country [that . . .] looked so pretty and clean but it spoke a language you couldn’t dig. The paddy [white] boys talked about things you couldn’t dig [. . .]. No matter how much you busted your hump trying to be one of them, you’d never belong, they wouldn’t let you” (88). The mixture and confusion of the city might be violent and dangerous, but it is better than the cloying hypocrisy of the suburbs, where a girl at a dance treats Piri politely enough to his face, only for him immediately afterwards to overhear her telling her friends: “Imagine the nerve of that black thing” (85). If in Long Island he is repeatedly put back in his place, in Harlem he feels that place might still be somehow up for grabs.

Struggling to stake out his role in a context defined by poverty and social antagonism (in which the disadvantaged are constantly at each others’ throats), Thomas has to resolve the contradiction that he is seen as black even though his family, and particularly his similarly dark-skinned father, insist that as Puerto Ricans they have more in common with whites, that they are perhaps half-white or almost white. His father even accentuates his Puerto Rican accent if it will help distance him from the stigma of blackness. Yet as Piri points out, the dominant white culture tries to maintain an image of purity and inviolability: “Poppa, they don’t care how you feel inside. They don’t care if you look white. No mix, no mingling–for Christ’s sake, even your shit gotta be practically white!” (150). Lambasting him for his self-denial, Piri tries to instill in his father some notion of black pride: “You gonna have to wake up to the fact that you ain’t white, but that’s all right, Poppa, that’s all right. There’s pride galore in being a Negro, Poppa” (151). It is not yet clear, however, that Piri himself quite believes this.

Still confused or torn between different possible identities or identifications, Piri decides to head south, as though he could gain some kind of clarity the other side of the Mason/Dixon line. As he explains to his friend, Brew, an African American who has moved north: “It might just set me straight on a lotta things. Maybe I can stop being confused and come in on a right stick” (127). Brew reluctantly agrees to accompany him, “but only on the condition you cool your role” (128). Yet the heat or passion that Piri feels seems to come precisely from the fact that he does not yet feel he has a “role.”

Nor does the first stop on the journey south enlighten him much; if anything, it just adds to the confusion. In Norfolk, Virginia, waiting for a ship to take them down the coast, Piri and Brew meet a man, working as a waiter, who is almost Piri’s mirror image or distorted double. For this Gerald Andrew West is also a northerner who is seeking some kind of clarity in the south, in his case expecting to discover “the warmth and harmony of the southern Negro, their wonderful capacity for laughter and strength [. . .] the richness of their poverty” (170). Moreover, Gerald, too, has constructed this romanticized image of blackness from a position of marginality and mixture: he is not exactly white, although, “tan-colored” he is “not really very negroid-looking” (170). Yet he is much more certain of his own identity, arguing that this should be a matter of choice and affective affiliation: “I have the right to identify with whatever race or nationality approximates my emotional feeling and physical characteristics” (176). As Piri observes, “Gerald had problems something like mine. Except that he was a Negro trying to make Puerto Rican and I was a Puerto Rican trying to make Negro” (177). They are choosing different roots out of a shared confusion.

But in other ways, Gerald’s and Piri’s strategies will turn out to be the same. What is interesting is that, in addition, Gerald defines himself as a potential author: he is “writing a book on the Negro situation” that he hopes will eventually “contribute in some way to the Negro’s cause” (171). For we know, thanks to the evidence of the book we are reading, that Piri, too, though at this stage he does not know it, will end up a writer. And though, half-way through the memoir, it is still unclear what kind of resolution he may find for his sense of confusion, we do know that it will take the form of the text that we are holding in our hands.

Down These Mean Streets I

thomas_mean-streets2The story Piri Thomas tells in his memoir Down These Mean Streets is a story of cultural and ethnic confusion. Thomas, the US-born dark-skinned son of Puerto Rican migrants, grows up in a multicultural and multilingual Harlem marked by “the roar of multicolored kids, a street blend of Spanish and English with a strong tone of Negro American” (121). Everyone lives cheek-by-jowl, and yet the streets are also carved up into jealously-guarded territorial units. The family moves three blocks, from 111th to 114th Street, and they find themselves on “Italian turf” (24). Immediately picked on by the local gang of Italian kids, Piri wins their respect by obeying a cross-cultural code of omertà and not squealing on them when things go too far and a fight ends up with him half-blinded and in hospital. He has passed a rite of passage, and it turns out that “Italianos wouldn’t be so bad if they spoke Spanish” (39). However “mean” these Manhattan streets are, they are infinitely preferable to the Long Island suburbs to which the family move later: “a foreign country [that . . .] looked so pretty and clean but it spoke a language you couldn’t dig. The paddy [white] boys talked about things you couldn’t dig [. . .]. No matter how much you busted your hump trying to be one of them, you’d never belong, they wouldn’t let you” (88). The mixture and confusion of the city might be violent and dangerous, but it is better than the cloying hypocrisy of the suburbs, where a girl at a dance treats Piri politely enough to his face, only for him immediately afterwards to overhear her telling her friends: “Imagine the nerve of that black thing” (85). If in Long Island he is repeatedly put back in his place, in Harlem he feels that place might still be somehow up for grabs.

Struggling to stake out his role in a context defined by poverty and social antagonism (in which the disadvantaged are constantly at each others’ throats), Thomas has to resolve the contradiction that he is seen as black even though his family, and particularly his similarly dark-skinned father, insist that as Puerto Ricans they have more in common with whites, that they are perhaps half-white or almost white. His father even accentuates his Puerto Rican accent if it will help distance him from the stigma of blackness. Yet as Piri points out, the dominant white culture tries to maintain an image of purity and inviolability: “Poppa, they don’t care how you feel inside. They don’t care if you look white. No mix, no mingling–for Christ’s sake, even your shit gotta be practically white!” (150). Lambasting him for his self-denial, Piri tries to instill in his father some notion of black pride: “You gonna have to wake up to the fact that you ain’t white, but that’s all right, Poppa, that’s all right. There’s pride galore in being a Negro, Poppa” (151). It is not yet clear, however, that Piri himself quite believes this.

Still confused or torn between different possible identities or identifications, Piri decides to head south, as though he could gain some kind of clarity the other side of the Mason/Dixon line. As he explains to his friend, Brew, an African American who has moved north: “It might just set me straight on a lotta things. Maybe I can stop being confused and come in on a right stick” (127). Brew reluctantly agrees to accompany him, “but only on the condition you cool your role” (128). Yet the heat or passion that Piri feels seems to come precisely from the fact that he does not yet feel he has a “role.” Nor does the first stop on the journey south enlighten him much; if anything, it just adds to the confusion. In Norfolk, Virginia, waiting for a ship to take them down the coast, Piri and Brew meet a man, working as a waiter, who is almost Piri’s mirror image or distorted double. For this Gerald Andrew West is also a northerner who is seeking some kind of clarity in the south, in his case expecting to discover “the warmth and harmony of the southern Negro, their wonderful capacity for laughter and strength [. . .] the richness of their poverty” (170). Moreover, Gerald, too, has constructed this romanticized image of blackness from a position of marginality and mixture: he is not exactly white, although, “tan-colored” he is “not really very negroid-looking” (170). Yet he is much more certain of his own identity, arguing that this should be a matter of choice and affective affiliation: “I have the right to identify with whatever race or nationality approximates my emotional feeling and physical characteristics” (176). As Piri observes, “Gerald had problems something like mine. Except that he was a Negro trying to make Puerto Rican and I was a Puerto Rican trying to make Negro” (177). They are choosing different roots out of a shared confusion.

But in other ways, Gerald’s and Piri’s strategies will turn out to be the same. What is interesting is that, in addition, Gerald defines himself as a potential author: he is “writing a book on the Negro situation” that he hopes will eventually “contribute in some way to the Negro’s cause” (171). For we know, thanks to the evidence of the book we are reading, that Piri, too, though at this stage he does not know it, will end up a writer. And though, half-way through the memoir, it is still unclear what kind of resolution he may find for his sense of confusion, we do know that it will take the form of the text that we are holding in our hands.

Week 6—Down These Mean Streets (part i)

I’ve been waiting to start studying this book since the start of term, anticipating even more our class discussions. When I preread this book (okay, I made it half way through), I couldn’t put it down. I guess partly because it is a memoir of Piri Thomas’ life; a collection of his life experiences and happenings that made him the person he became. There is such a personal element in this story. I mean, let’s face it, very few heterosexual men will describe their first sexual experiences with another man, even fewer will even admit to it.

One of the main themes of his memoir is one that fascinates me the most in literature—liminality. Here we have a man, Piri Thomas, who is raised in a Puerto Rican home, with Puerto Rican parents and siblings. Moms is a ‘white’ Puerto Rican and Poppa is a ‘black’ Puerto Rican. Piri shares the same complexion with his father. And from the beginning of the book, Thomas remarks on the harsh, if not abusive, treatment he receives from his father. Right off the bat, Thomas tells the reader that “Poppa ain’t never gunna hit me again. I’m his kid too, just like James, José, Paulie, and Sis. But I’m the one that always gets the blame for everything.” For some reason, there is an unseen tension between Piri and Poppa; a rift between them despite them sharing a similar complexion. In fact, the first section, titled “Harlem” begins with Thomas saying “Pops, how come me and you is always on the outs? Is it something we don’t know nothing about? I wonder if it’s something I done, or something I am.” Even though Piri and Poppa are the two members of the family who share a darker complexion, it is as if Poppa resents Piri and takes it out on him. Perhaps it is to toughen Piri up to prepare him for a life of prejudgment and racism, which we read about in a few chapters.

It comes to light more prominently later on that Piri doesn’t see himself as Black; rather, he sees himself as Puerto Rican. In Chapter 11, titled “How to Be a Negro Without Really Trying”, Thomas describes his job interview, and how he is passed over for being ‘black’. When he tells Harold Christian that he is Puerto Rican, Piri is probed about his name and the degree of Puerto Ricanness it is. Harold Christian doesn’t care though…all he sees is some black dude in front of him.

Piri sees himself as neither black nor white and that isn’t sufficient for the outside world. He doesn’t see colour or race, clinging only to his inherent nationality. Society, however, sees him as black and treats him as black. His teachers, neighbours and potential employer see only the colour of his skin, missing the person he really is. It is as if the label Puerto Rican is both on the limits of whiteness and the limits of blackness separately at the same time.

Piri also tests his limits when he and his pals go to the home of the local ‘maricones’ to smoke up and get some cheap thrills. His friends don’t seem to mind ‘gettin’ down’ with men because they are effeminate and sound like women, with feminine gestures. Does this make them gay? Does it not count as a gay experience because their demeanour isn’t masculine? Piri, however, can’t get past this and has an internal argument with himself throughout the first part of their visit. Although once he’s stoned, Concha starts putting the moves on him (hashtag metoo movement). While Piri knows he is straight (sexually speaking), he isn’t straight enough, in terms of sobriety, to stop Concha from taking advantage of him.

Anyway, those are my thoughts on the book so far. I will keep it to that because I am sure I am already over my word limit. I am adding a song by my girlfriend, Cher, called “Half Breed”. Although she sings about being the product of a ‘mixed’ encounter (which she was, just not this the mix she sings aboot), a similar sentiment is shared with Piri Thomas’ feelings of being in between two races.

With His Pistol in His Hand (Part 2)

To be honest, I found the second part of the book quite boring. I know Paredes has a point in explaining why there are so many different variations of the corridos. There were times that I had no idea if I skipped a page or five because I couldn’t keep track of the people and the places mentioned in the book anymore. At the same time, it was good to see what it was like back then and also to learn a little bit about the history of Mexico. It is interesting to see how the corridos have “evolved” by being passed around as a tradition orally. While it might be impossible to know what really happened, there is something so beautiful as to how that might just stay as a mystery or rather a treasure that will be preserved by those who actually do know what happened.

I believe one of the reasons that it has been altered numerous times is the historical context behind it and what the people of a certain place perceive Gregorio Cortez to be. One can easily assume things about his personality or the role that he played back in the day.  Something I can relate to this is a recent photo of an animated movie that I have seen on social media. I remember seeing a poster of the first Spaniard, Ferdinand Magellan, that “discovered” the Philippines back in 1521 and then there is a guy on the poster on the bottom-right corner of the poster. This guy, Lapu-Lapu, is someone I learned about when I was little. His image was smaller than Magellan’s of course. It is also indicated that Lapu-Lapu is the villain in the movie. To me, it was weird because I learned about the arrival of the Spaniards from the Filipino perspective and I never looked at Lapu-Lapu as a villain. I believe that the arrival of the Spaniards was the first time that the Philippines has had colonizers. It is just intuitive for humans to protect their own, and this is where Lapu-Lapu comes in. Since the movie is probably an original in Spain, it just makes sense that those who are fighting back from the “conquered” side are named the villains or the “bad guys”. From the Spanish point of view, this is a new discovery that brought glory to the name of Spain but to the natives, it meant oppression and slavery.

The same thing might have happened with Gregorio Cortez’s story. The more the people knew about him, the more the stories about him changed.

With His Pistol in His Hand (Part 2)

To be honest, I found the second part of the book quite boring. I know Paredes has a point in explaining why there are so many different variations of the corridos. There were times that I had no idea if I skipped a page or five because I couldn’t keep track of the people and the places mentioned in the book anymore. At the same time, it was good to see what it was like back then and also to learn a little bit about the history of Mexico. It is interesting to see how the corridos have “evolved” by being passed around as a tradition orally. While it might be impossible to know what really happened, there is something so beautiful as to how that might just stay as a mystery or rather a treasure that will be preserved by those who actually do know what happened.

I believe one of the reasons that it has been altered numerous times is the historical context behind it and what the people of a certain place perceive Gregorio Cortez to be. One can easily assume things about his personality or the role that he played back in the day.  Something I can relate to this is a recent photo of an animated movie that I have seen on social media. I remember seeing a poster of the first Spaniard, Ferdinand Magellan, that “discovered” the Philippines back in 1521 and then there is a guy on the poster on the bottom-right corner of the poster. This guy, Lapu-Lapu, is someone I learned about when I was little. His image was smaller than Magellan’s of course. It is also indicated that Lapu-Lapu is the villain in the movie. To me, it was weird because I learned about the arrival of the Spaniards from the Filipino perspective and I never looked at Lapu-Lapu as a villain. I believe that the arrival of the Spaniards was the first time that the Philippines has had colonizers. It is just intuitive for humans to protect their own, and this is where Lapu-Lapu comes in. Since the movie is probably an original in Spain, it just makes sense that those who are fighting back from the “conquered” side are named the villains or the “bad guys”. From the Spanish point of view, this is a new discovery that brought glory to the name of Spain but to the natives, it meant oppression and slavery.

The same thing might have happened with Gregorio Cortez’s story. The more the people knew about him, the more the stories about him changed.