![]() The mentally-damaged woman and the naïve girl are alike in many ways. She simply adds another week to her visit, and avoids returning to that "real house all her own" that Esperanza envies. Indeed, the children admire Ruthie because she "is the only grown up we know who likes to play." Ruthie finds her own private joy in life, as "she doesn't need anybody to laugh with, she just laughs."Įsperanza does not understand why Ruthie sleeps on her mother's couch instead of in her own home with her husband. This chapter depicts the child-like, half-crazed adult daughter of the woman who owns the three apartments next door. And his home was in another country." Her lyrical words have a sad tone which connote the mental image of a solitary tombstone. She pays the homage to Geraldo that no one else in this country will, and no one in home country can: "His name was Geraldo. (Indeed, we know that the concept of home for Esperanza equates the ultimate place and sense of self). Esperanza replaces the human face the hospital and police authorities tried to erase from Geraldo by describing his home. Rhetorical questions such as "what does it matter?" and "how could they?" are a social criticism of mainstream societies treatment of immigrants as dispensable and second-class human beings. So too, the line of questioning used by the police hints that society was trying to find an excuse for the death of an immigrant perhaps his shady activities brought this fate upon himself. ![]() Her repetition of "if the surgeon had come" is a clue that Geraldo's death was not inevitable. ![]() Marin's distraught attitude at the death of Geraldo is not simply a result of knowing someone who died, for indeed this boy was merely a new acquaintance. The end of the chapter ends with Esperanza imagining the agony of Geraldo's family in Mexico, who he worked hard to support and will never know why his checks ceased arriving. ![]() Thus, Marin is doubly upset at his death, especially because she believes Geraldo would have been saved if the surgeon had come sooner. As her was a "wetback" who did not speak English, the efforts to save, identify, and notify the family of the victim seem to be meager at best. As she was the last person he was seen with, Marin must go to the hospital and speak with police to assist them in identifying the victim. A boy Marin meets at a dance is killed in a hit-and-run accident. ![]()
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