bjbj?W?W ! ?= ?= ?K ?? ?? ?? ] ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ” ” ” ” 8 ?
? ” ! ? ? ( ? ? ? ? ? ? ? $ ? ? ? ?
L ? ? ? L L L ? ? ? ? h , h ? ? ? ? ? L ? L ? ? ? ? ?
??????? ” ” 0 ? Piri Thomas?s autobiography, Down These Mean Streets, covers his life from ages twelve to twenty-eight, and details the hardships of growing up in el barrio of Spanish Harlem, New York City in the 1940?s and 1950?s. Although Piri Thomas is native-born, his parents are recent immigrants to the mainland United States from Puerto Rico. Thomas?s father claims to be of Puerto Rican nationality, but is actually of Cuban heritage with African blood, while his mother is a white native Puerto Rican. Down These Mean Streets is “the first account about growing up in a United States ghetto written in native English by a second-generation Puerto Rican to bridge over to a mainstream U.S. audience.” (Kanellos 311) Although Thomas was born in the United States, he is able to accurately portray the Puerto Rican immigrant experience in the U.S. through family and community struggles and he is able to vividly depict what it is to grow up Puerto Rican. Thomas brings to the surface the inevitable discrimination and oppression facing Puerto Ricans in the United States and he opens our eyes to the harsh realities of what it means to be dark-skinned in this country.
The Term Paper on Puerto Rican Rico Ricans Political
Puerto Rico and its people have endured a long history filled with colonialism and ambiguous rule. It is a nation whose citizens have endured years of imperial rule, enslavement and forced dependence on other countries for its existence. It is a nation which has changed drastically from the days when Taines were the exclusive inhabitants of the island. Unfortunately, Puerto Rico can no longer ...
Down These Mean Streets “has an undeniable power?com[ing] from the fact that it is a report from the guts and heart of a submerged population group, itself submerged in the guts and hearts of our cities. It claims our attention and emotional response because of the honesty and pain of a life led in outlaw, fringe status, where the dream is always to escape.” (Stern 1) In order to fully understand the Puerto Rican immigrant experience in the United States, we must first analyze personal motivations for migration. Down These Mean Streets does not give the reader a sense of why Piri?s parents migrated to the U.S., nor even tell us when the migration occurred. Little mention at all is made to the lives which Piri?s parents led in Puerto Rico, except for the occasional nostalgic memory imparted by Piri?s mother. “His family asserted its Puerto Ricanness and his mother inculcated in her children a longing for and an emotional identification with their homeland.” (Kanellos 311) When answering her children?s inquiry as to whether she was poor in Puerto Rico, Piri?s mother answers, Si, muy pobre, but very happy. I remember the hard work and the very little bit we had, but it was a good little bit.
It counted very much. Sometimes, when you have too much, the good gets lost within and you have to look very hard. But, when you have a little, the good does not have to be looked for so hard?you have people everywhere who, because they have more, don?t remember those who have very little. But in Puerto Rico those around you share la pobreza with you and they love you, because only poor people can understand poor people. I like los Estados Unidos, but it?s sometimes a cold place to live ? not because of the winter and the landlord not giving heat but because of the snow in the hearts of the people. (Thomas 9-10) This statement by Piri?s mother imparts that her family was very poor and this may indicate that economic factors influenced her out-migration. Although she probably did leave her homeland because of extreme poverty and although she may be doing slightly better economically in the United States; one must ask, at what cost? Piri?s mother has quickly realized that to be poor in Puerto Rico is very different from being poor in the U.S. She is well aware that in this country being poor means no escape from negative stigmatization. Along with personal motivations for migration, one must look at the historical, political, and economic forces that drive migration.
The Essay on Cultural Activities In Puerto Rico
Cultural Activities in Puerto Rico In her book Sponsored Identities, Arlene M. Davila discusses the dynamics of cultural politics in Puerto Rican society. She examines how culture and cultural nationalism have been used to promote consumer goods and political viewpoints. Arlene Davila asserts that cultural nationalism has been used by corporate advertisers to promote consumer goods (Davila ...
Due to the fact that Piri Thomas was born in 1928 in New York City, it is safe to say that his parents emigrated from Puerto Rico prior to that. In order to understand why Piri?s parents chose to build their lives in the U.S. we must look to the situation in Puerto Rico at the time. Migration out of Puerto Rico began as early as 1898, when Spain ceded Puerto Rico to the United States at the conclusion of the Spanish-American War and increased after President Wilson passed the Jones Act in 1917 granting American citizenship to all Puerto Ricans. (Green 1130) Puerto Rican migration to the United States also rose during World War I. “As of 1910, approximately 1,500 Puerto Ricans were living in the United States. However, the Puerto Rican population living there had increased to 52,774 by 1930.” (Torres 715) This great rise in immigration, during the first period of migration from 1900-1945, can best be explained by the political and economic relationships between Puerto Rico and the mainland. “The political relationship between Puerto Rico and the mainland resulted not just in political dependence, but also in economic dependence.” (Rodriguez 103) Prior to the approximate time that Piri Thomas? parents immigrated, Puerto Rico?s economy underwent sweeping changes.
U.S. involvement in Puerto Rico transformed the economy from a “diversified subsistence economy” with the staple exported crops being tobacco, cattle, coffee and sugar in the early 1900?s, to an economy based solely on sugar exportation with “60 percent of the sugar industry controlled by absentee owners from the mainland.” (Rodriguez 103) “The decline of the sugar cane-based industry (combined with no reinvestment and continued population growth) in the twenties resulted in high unemployment, poverty, and desperate conditions in Puerto Rico.” (Rodriguez 103) These push factors caused early immigrants, such as Piri Thomas?s parents, to flee Puerto Rico in search of better opportunities. Along with the factors causing people to leave Puerto Rico, other pull factors regarding employment in the U.S. during the first period of Puerto Rican migration greatly increased the numbers of people entering the mainland. During this time, Puerto Rican “pioneers”, as they were termed for being apart of the first wave of migration, were lured to the mainland with the promise of secure employment. “These early migrants worked as contract laborers to produce goods such as ships and ammunition needed for the war.” (Torres 715) United States industries began actively recruiting Puerto Rican labor to work on the mainland.
The Review on Down these mean streets by Thomas Piri
Years after its original publication, Piri Thomas’s Down These Mean Streets remains as powerful, immediate, and shocking as it was when it first stunned readers. In this classic confessional autobiography, firmly in the tradition of Eldridge Cleaver’s Soul on Ice and The Autobiography of Malcolm X, Piri Thomas describes the experience of growing up in the barrio of Spanish Harlem, a labyrinth of ...
(Rodriguez 102) This population?s labor was highly regarded by employers because Puerto Ricans were citizens and possessed a very good work ethic. (Rodriguez 102) Further, adding to the appeal of Puerto Rican laborers, was the fact that employers could reap great profits from exploiting this population with very low wages. (Rodriguez 102) This “industrial and agricultural labor under contract? ?provided the base from which sprang many of the Puerto Rican communities?.” (Rodriguez 105) U. S. policy, during this first wave of Puerto Rican migration, was both positive and negative towards immigrants. Immigration policy during the first half of the century was positive in that its open nature allowed all Puerto Rican the chance to escape their desperate situations in their homeland. However, U.S. policy proved to be negative in that this “openness” and welcoming quality toward Puerto Ricans was all done in the country?s own self-interest. U.S. industries were helped along by the exploited, cheap labor provided by Puerto Ricans. Puerto Rican “tailors, cigar makers, carpenters and skilled artisans?contributed to the growing American economy.” (Torres 715) Also, with open immigration during war times, as was the case during World War I in the first period of migration, U.S.
The Essay on Dominicans And Puerto Ricans
York has the highest concentration of Puerto Ricans and Dominicans according New to the 2002 United States Census report. It is reported that 30. 8% of Puerto Ricans and 59. 5% of Dominicans in the United States reside in New York. Puerto Ricans and Dominicans make up the largest group of Hispanics residing in New York. As a Hispanic of Dominican background I am often asked whether I am Puerto ...
policy made it possible for large numbers of Puerto Ricans to be added to our armed forces. “During World War I, as many as 1,000 Puerto Ricans ? all newly naturalized American citizens ? served in the U.S. army” and that number climbed to 100,000 by the onset of World War II. (Green 1131) The pull towards employment can be further illustrated by examining why large numbers of Puerto Ricans settled in New York City. Most early Puerto Rican migrants came to New York City due to the “wide availability of industrial and service-industry jobs” which were just the type of low-skilled employment that non-English speaking peoples needed to survive on the mainland. (Green 1131) Many Puerto Rican migrants found themselves settling in East Harlem, a section of Upper Manhattan between 116th and 145th streets, because oftentimes there were already family members or friends residing there to aid them in adjusting to their new communities. (Green 1131) Due to the high numbers of Latin people in this area it was termed Spanish Harlem. “Among New York City puertorriquenos, the Latino-populated area was referred to as el barrio, or ?the neighborhood?.” (Green 1131) Adhering to this now well-documented settlement pattern was Piri Thomas?s family.
They built their lives in the barrio of Spanish Harlem and shared their mainland experience with the other Puerto Rican migrant families residing there. Being raised as a Puerto Rican in America, Piri Thomas experienced many of the same disadvantages that all migrants experience on the mainland. The poverty that his family was forced to live in is characteristic of Puerto Rican families in the 1940?s and 1950?s, and still is to a large extent today. The “U.S. Census Bureau indicates that for at least 25 percent of all Puerto Ricans living on the mainland (and 55 percent living on the island) poverty is a serious problem.” (Green 1132) The early migrants to the mainland, especially families residing in New York City, worked in the service and industry job sectors. (Green 1137) The leading employment among early migrant Puerto Rican women was in the garment industry. (Green 1137) Piri?s mother worked all her life as one of these garment industry employees, working in needle industry factories and doing piecework at home. (Kanellos 311) Piri?s father was constantly struggling with unemployment while Piri was growing up, and he was forced to work for the federal government?s Works Progress Administration digging ditches for menial wages in the wintertime.
The Term Paper on Puerto Rican Rico Identity Spanish
WHO AM The effect of colonialism on a colonized people can often result in a situation better known to us today as an "identity crisis." Studying the history of Puerto Rico under Spanish rule helps us to identify the problems found within modern notions of Puerto Rican identity. Such notions of national identity stem from the belief that Puerto Rico is a 'self-defined community of people who share ...
Despite the fact that Piri?s parents were extremely hard working, they remained poverty-stricken, as did most Puerto Rican migrants in the 1930?s, 40?s, and 50?s. During the time of the depression, the Thomas family was hit very hard, migrants being the first ones to be laid off in tough times and being paid the lowest of wages. Piri Thomas captures his family?s impossible situation when he retells his father?s return from work on a typical day. His father recalls, “It was not always like this?It?s all the fault of the damn depression.” (Thomas 11) Thomas writes, My father kept talking to the walls. Some of the words came out loud, others stayed inside. I caught the inside ones ? the damn WPA, the damn depression, the damn home relief, the damn poorness, the damn cold, the damn crummy apartments, the damn look on his damn kids, living so damn damned and his not being able to do a damn thing about it. (Thomas 11)
Later in the book, things get slightly better when Mr. Thomas gets a short-lived job working in an airplane factory during World War II. Thomas comments on the ironic nature of these events by saying, “Things were looking up for us, but it had taken a damn war to do it. A lousy rumble had to get called so we could start to live better. I thought, How do you figure this crap out?” (Thomas 13) After the close of the war, Piri?s father loses his factory job and goes back to work for the WPA. Eventually he loses this job and the Thomas family is forced to go on home relief. Piri?s mother asks Piri to skip school and go with her to the Home Relief Office because, like many first-generation migrants, she has trouble negotiating the language barrier. Thomas writes this of the experience, “Most of the people were Puerto Ricans and Negroes?It seemed that every mother had brought a kid to interpret for her.” (Thomas 42) Thomas sums up the prideful nature that these Puerto Rican migrants maintain even in such needy times. He describes their pleading as “?taking with outstretched hands and resenting it in the same breath.”(Thomas 43) Piri Thomas expresses how his family had to shop in second-hand clothing stores and how they were so poor that, as a youngster, he would sell cans of Home Relief corned beef to the pet-shop owner in exchange for pigeons which his mother would cook for meals.
The Essay on Mexican And Puerto Ricans
Many Americans think Mexicans and Puerto Ricans are the same since they both belong to the ethnic group, Latino, and have a connection with Spanish language; there are many differences like the accents, vocabulary, culture, history, and the struggles they both had. Mexicans and Puerto Ricans are similar and different in immigration because Mexicans immigrated to the southwestern areas such as ...
Aside from the poverty that young Piri Thomas is forced to endure, he also becomes deeply confused about his identity while he is growing up. Piri is discriminated against for being of Spanish descent and receives even further prejudice because he is a dark-skinned negrito. A common thread for Puerto Rican migrants is identity confusion, because although they are considered Americans, they are often not accepted as such. “Since a great many Puerto Ricans are of mixed Spanish and African descent, they have had to endure the same sort of racial discrimination often experienced by African Americans. And some Puerto Ricans are further handicapped by the Spanish-to-English language barrier in American cities.” (Green 1132) Piri Thomas becomes increasingly alienated from white American society as he meets racism over and over again in his daily life. He attends a suburban high school on Long Island, and because of his dark complexion, wooly hair, and flat nose, he is considered black and is, therefore, ostracized by his classmates. He is turned down for a job as a door-to-door salesman while his white-looking friend, with the same qualifications, is hired. When Piri travels down south with a friend of his, he is not permitted to eat in a whites-only restaurant. These are just a few of the incidents that Piri encounters in his daily struggle to get by in a racist country.
Aside from the discrimination that Piri faces in the outside world, prejudice proliferates his own home as well. “Piri?s growing realization that he will face prejudice all his life, a sobering experience for anyone, is rendered all the more painfully by the fact that neither his white mother nor his lighter-complexioned siblings can truly share in this experience: The color line cleaves Piri?s own family.” (Magill 126) Piri feels rejected by his dark-skinned father who, as he sees it, favors the younger siblings because they are light-skinned. Thomas clarifies the relationship he has with his father through a mental conversation. He asks, Pops, I wondered, 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. Why do I feel so left outta things with you ? like Moms is both of you to me, like if you and me was just an accident around here? I dig when you holler at the other kids for doing something wrong. How come it sounds different when you holler at me? Why does it sound harder and meaner? ?How come when we all play with you, I can?t really enjoy it like the rest? How come when we all get hit for doing something wrong, I feel it the hardest? Maybe ?cause I?m the biggest, huh? Or maybe because I?m the darkest in this family? (Thomas 22)
Piri Thomas begins to internalize much of the societal discrimination he is forced to deal with and the favoritism he experiences in his own home and he begins to struggle within himself. He writes, I wondered if it was too mean to hate your brothers a little for looking white like Momma. I felt my hair ? thick, black, and wiry. Mentally I compared my hair with my brothers? hair?I felt my nose?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??I felt sort of chicken-*censored* thinking like that. I felt shame creep into me. It wasn?t right to be ashamed of what one was. It was like hating Momma for the color she was and Poppa for the color he wasn?t. (Thomas 121) Faced with extreme poverty, societal discrimination, and familial alienation, Piri Thomas turns to street life for comfort and some consistent value system. Young Puerto Rican migrants, including second and third generation ones, characteristically turn to street life and gangs because of the wide array of difficult issues facing them. In fact, “despite the presumed advantages of American citizenship, Puerto Ricans are ?overall- the most economically disadvantaged Latino group in the United States. Puerto Rican communities in urban areas are plagued by problems such as crime, drug-use, poor educational opportunity, unemployment, and the breakdown of the traditionally strong Puerto Rican family structure.” (Green 1132)
The value system that Thomas turns to in the streets can best be explained by the Hispanic cultural phenomenon known as machismo, which translates essentially into an “insistent maleness”; a constant display of “heart” and courage in the face of the most dangerous risky situations. (Stern 1) “This can lead a boy to a sense of his own worth ? or to drugs and jail.” (Stern 1) Piri and his friends are well aware that in their world one can never “punk-out”, whether that means shooting up heroin, impregnating a virtual stranger, or committing armed robbery, all of which Piri did unquestioningly. Thomas explains, in very simplistic terms, the way in which he saw the world by stating, “Whether you?re right or wrong, as long as you?re strong, you?re right.” (Thomas118) Piri?s world consists entirely of violence, drug-abuse, crime and casual sex, and it seems that there is absolutely no other way for him. Thomas says this of himself and his situation, I am a skinny, dark-face, curly-haired, intense Porty-Ree-can- Unsatisfied, hoping, and always reaching. I got a feeling of aloneness and a bitterness that?s growing and growing Day by day into some kind of hate without un nombre?the streets below [are] like a great big dirty Christmas tree with lights but no *censored*in presents?And I begin to listen to the sounds inside me. Get angry, get hating angry, and you won?t be scared. What have you got now? Nothing. What will you ever have? Nothing ? Unless you cop it for yourself! (Thomas x)
A critic of Down These Mean Streets puts it eloquently when he describes this urban street value system as “a trial by ordeal that American society devises when it challenges a boy to feel like a man while he?s up to his neck in the muck that is thrown at him” (Bendiner 283).
Piri Thomas, through his own personal experiences and tough trials and in his own abrasive street slang, vividly depicts the life of a typical Puerto Rican migrant surviving against all odds. Piri Thomas?s book “presents a life differing little from that of hundreds of thousands of boys who grew up and continue to grow up under similar conditions” (Aldrich 17).
“As a black Puerto Rican he speaks for the negritos of this world, as well as for those captive Americans of Spanish descent and tradition, the Puerto Ricans of Spanish Harlem?In speaking for the black as well as for the poor and alien, he speaks for all who are buried alive in a society that troubles itself only minimally with it?s inarticulate miserable, its humiliated, its defeated and self-defeating.” (Stern 44) – 5 ” ? ?
? ? ?$ ?$ ?$ ?$ ?% ?% & & & & ?- ?/ 0 0 0 ?0 ?5 ?5 :: ?* ?* ?* ? ?? ?? ?? X@ ?A ?A ?B ?B ?F /F QJ ZJ ?J 9K EK ]K iK ?K RN ZN ?O ?O ?O ?O ?O ?O ?O ?O ?O ?O ?O ?O ?O ?O ?O ?O ??????????????????? ??????????? ??????? ?????? ??????????????????????? ?????? ? 0J mH 0J
j 0J U CJ H* 6 ?CJ ** CJ CJ O
? ? ? ? ?- ?” 1? ;, ?- ?/ @/ ?4 :: ?* ?? ?? X@ ?B ?B ?E rI ?K ?K ?L ?O ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ?? d? ? d?
? ? ? ? ?- ?” 1? ;, ?- ?/ @/ ?4 :: ?* ?? ?? X@ ?B ?B ?E rI ?K ?K ?L ?O ?O ?O ?O ?O ?O ?O ?O ?O ?O ?O ?O ?O ?O ?O ?O ?O ?O ?O ?? ? ? ?? ????????????????? -?O ?O ?O ?O ?O ?O ?O ?O ?O ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? d?
