Down These Mean Streets I: A life in seek of recognition

This book has been the one I most enjoyed until now. Piri Thomas` memoir is deep and catchy. His live, far from being simple, is interesting and challenging to read. His childhood is full of hard experiences, that he faces with all the happiness and adventurous attitude he could have. Piri is always looking for recognition. For instance, he is continually seeking that through his dad’s approval (he wants his dad to recognize him as a grown man). Moreover, he wants his young fellows in the Spanish Harlem to respect and accept him in the group. He hates all the times he has to move out to another neighborhood because those transitions mean for him a disconnection for the ‘approval’ he has achieved on the Spanish Harlem. The fact of being a new boy on the Italian part of the neighborhood caused him to go to the hospital and almost get blind. However, Italians were not the only one who rejected him; once his family got a better social mobility and moved on to a nicer neighborhood, he also found rejection by white people in the high school he was at.

I think the fact that Piri was so focused on gaining approval by the rest of people was because he was not even sure of who he was. His world was constructed around El Barrio (the Spanish Harlem), and his identity was mixed with English and Spanish; Puerto Rico and New York; El Barrio and the rest of the city, etc. The only comfortable and secure place for Piri was El Barrio, and that’s why he comes back to this place even if he does not have where to live in, or what to eat. Piri’s rejection of staying at the new neighborhood with his mom and siblings is rooted in the issue that he is trying desperately to find his roots, his place of comfort, his home, the place where he can feel he belongs to; and that’s El Barrio for him. El Barrio has granted Piri the recognition and the belonging he needed so much.

Down these mean streets highlights important social issues by looking into the life of a real person, who is letting us know about the difficulty of poverty, race discrimination, dislocation, welfare dependence, homosexuality, love, unequal education, drug dependency, and a lot more in his own life. Yet, the thing I found most interesting and complex is the fact that even though Piri suffered from all these social issues at the Spanish Harlem, when he has the opportunity to leave all these behind; he still chooses to stay. He decides to stay in a place where the majority of people would prefer not to be…. why?

Read 3 comments

  1. Hey Pamela,

    Your final paragraph really made me think about social issues and breaking barriers between groups. I thought about what you had included in your previous blog re: With a Pistol in His Hand and how you liked that there was the Spanish version of the corrido along side the English. Language is a barrier for all of us, which becomes a social barrier…an issue not just in our classes or on campus, but in the community at large as well. But I really like what Thomas does in this book by including a glossary at the end. That way ‘blancos’ or whoever is reading that doesn’t speak Spanish, can participate as an observer in his story. None of our other books so far have done that. So along with the issues you mentioned, from poverty to drug dependency, he helps to break down the wall between his audience through language. Anyhoo, those are my thoughts.

    Que tengas un buen día,
    Craig

  2. Hi, Pamela,
    Your comment allows me to reflect on this opposition between rejection and integration. From one chapter to the next, the book describes how, moving from one neighborhood to another, Piri alternates between integration into the community and rejection by other social actors. The interesting fact, as you point out, is that this rejection and integration are strongly linked to the theme of identity, of “who Piri is”. In the case of integration, mainly in “El Barrio”, this is only possible because Piri shares a cultural identity with other Puerto Rican immigrants, and therefore can adopt by imitation the same behavioural model as the others. This is why the gang and his “fellas” were crucial elements in his successful integration. When he was rejected, as for example in the Italian block, it is on the sole ground that he is “different” from the majority and the collective identity of that particular neighborhood. What is even more interesting is that each of these neighborhoods are really close to each other. This shows us that although the book is about Piri’s individual identity, the theme of collective identity is crucial in the life of Piri as well as every Human being.

    Aurélien

  3. It is true that evidently Piri is always in search of approval and belonging. He does not feel comfortable with himself and his identity. Piri struggles with his sense of self. From childhood he has to navigate racism, prejudice and mistreatment due to his race. He battles with his racial identity as he considers himself Puerto Rican but the constant taunting he receives from kids who say he’s Black makes him come into conflict with his racial and self identity.

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