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.

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