The Madonnas Of Echo Park. (Reading Response Journal)

Transcription

1 Janet Su College 1 RRJ #2 Prof. Ribeiro The Madonnas Of Echo Park. (Reading Response Journal) Jacaranda flowers gave off a purple glow in the late spring. It was the season of purple. This chapter starts out by showing the importance of the symbolism of Jacaranda flowers. A little girl and her grandma was to be evicted from their own land soon, and as the little girl heard the sound of bulldozers coming closer and closer she did everything she could to plant Jacaranda flowers in hope that it would bloom and anchor them to the land, preventing them from leaving. She even stole water from the neighbour. But she woke up the next day only to find the Jacaranda flowers dead representing the crushing of her dreams. This is what women do, when they have an ocean of dreams but no water to put in them. The story then unfolds with Felicia and Aurora, struggling to live, as they were constantly criticized after the drive by shooting incident. Rick and his wife Mrs.Calhoun had reached out to them, offering Felicia a job as a cleaning lady, from there on we understand Felicia s thoughts and emotions more in depth. As months go by she struggles to make a connection with Mrs.Calhoun, a bond she yearns for. She realizes that everyone in the house would rather prefer to treat her as a invisible being rather than socialize, she could not accept that. Eventually with time, she was able to bond with Mrs.Calhoun, trying to understand her better, whilst still struggling to keep the bond with her daughter, Aurora. She learned a lot during this past year working at Rick s household, but her time here was ending. In gratitude, Rick had provided Felicia with a list of people who were hiring cleaning ladies to keep her with a job. On Felicia s last day at work, an even rather unexplainable happens. A body was caught drowning by the corner of Felicia s eyes who she thought may be

2 Mrs.Calhoun. She struggled to bring Mrs.Calhoun s body back to the surface, and she surrendered her body as it floated back to the surface of the pool. Who managed to live? Mrs.Calhoun or Felicia? I have observed a couple of things through this chapter. The way people treated Mexican house cleaning ladies was rather ignorant. Countless of times visitors had went in and out of the house and never knew of Felicia s existence, and the way Mrs.Calhoun communicated with Felicia was rather rude. She emphasized on every word, raising her volume as though Felicia didn t understand a single word in English. People in the house would just choose not to interact with cleaning ladies just for the sake of saving their efforts. There is still a slight sign of discrimination in this chapter, but less emphasized compared to chapter 1. This chapter also brought out a variety of complex emotions from Felicia s point of view. What struck me most was when Felicia talked about the word waiting. She says Either I am waiting on someone, serving them, or I am waiting for someone, to answer a question, to give me freedom, to love me. I felt like these were the words coming from the bottom of her cooped up heart. You could tell in this chapter that her relationship with Aurora wasn t all the great, she was yearning for someone to talk to, someone to get attention from, someone who would listen to her. But the fact that she couldn t speak english and didn t have time to learn english made it even harder on her. She was frustrated. She felt rather rejected when she realized how everyone in the household would rather just let her do her job and treat her as an invisible figure. The silence of the house was killing her, everyone minding their own business. These sentences were screaming Somebody recognize my existence in this household!. Another sentence that had struck my eyes was We laughed while plucking flakes of glass off our bodies. this was yet another factor brought into the story to reveal the normal routine of Mexicans, compared to that of the rich and wealthy Americans. Drive by shootings were to be treated like it was something that can be laughed off. Even when little girl Alma, had blood oozing out from her neck, not moving to the beat of the music, everyone else was

3 oblivious of her death. It was as though it had no effect on them because they ve seen it way too many times. It s rather sad is it not. This was yet another factor that can be seen in chapter one as well, however in this chapter it was more about forming communication despite the vast difference of American and Mexican culture. Either I am waiting on someone, serving them or I am waiting for someone, to answer a question, to give me freedom, to love me. (page 34 35) Who do you think she is waiting for? Possibly a man who could probably love her properly? She has revealed her sour attitude towards Hector quite a few times in this chapter as seen, I was still recovering from Hector, my one attempt at true love and He turned out to be a yo yo lover, a man who stings you more coming back than going away. Or could she be waiting for just anyone in the household to greet her and acknowledge her existence as a little sign of gratitude for all the hard work she s put in her job? What freedom was she seeking? The freedom to speak to anyone in this household without feeling ignored or restricted? Or freedom from her cage that she shut herself in, hoping for someone to free her. To love her, was not surprising because we re all human beings who yearn for acceptance in this world. Mrs.Calhoun seemed afraid to be alone. (Page 42) Why do you think Mrs.Calhoun was afraid of being alone when she enjoyed the silence so much? She had put it out there that she hated going outside and she hated talking to people, thus the reason for shutting out Felicia. However, Mrs.Calhoun eventually asked Felicia out for lunch, a move of advancing to Felicia and slowly opening up to her, showing signs that she does not infact hate talking to people all that much. But why? Sometimes Mrs.Calhoun couldn t stand noise and wanted utter silence, sometimes she d approach Felicia for some sort of noise or conversation.

4 While I was reading, I felt rather confused when Felicia had wrote a letter in response to Mrs.Calhoun s letter, stating that she would not stand Mrs.Calhoun s letter as it humiliated her in front of her daughter, Aurora. Why was she so angry to be humiliated in front of her daughter was what I didn t understand. Why did she have that pride and ego to maintain in front of her daughter? Maybe it was hard for me to understand because I could not put myself in a mother s shoes. Was it because she tried really hard for her daughter to be proud of her? Was she yearning for her daughter to say I m sorry mother I never realized how hard you were working for me, yet I took you for granted.? I felt rather awed at the amount of respect Aurora had for her mother, she seemed like she hated her own mother in fact. Yet, in chapter one, Aurora seemed to have hated her father too, and Hector would explain that it was the mother that had brainwashed Aurora into hating her father. Yet in this chapter she seems to have just as little respect for her mother. Also, I got stuck when reading this sentence. What those policemen couldn t find, though, was something I could already see a mother and daughter in a strangled embrace, looking for the space our faith had left next to each other to fill. I honestly felt like there was a deeper meaning behind this sentence, but I ve had trouble understanding it in depth. I tried re reading the sentence countless times but still couldn t really get the meaning behind it. Soon after, as I reached the end of the book, during the last paragraph, the drowning scene, I had trouble understanding why Mrs.Calhoun drowned herself. What were the reasons behind it? Did she drown herself because her only source of connection and life, Felicia, was leaving this job? Had she placed all hope and faith in Felicia that she was completely suicidal in hearing that Felicia s time was over? Had someone murdered her? Did she accidentally fall in? The answer, we do not know exactly. Jacaranda Tree This type of tree is violet / light purple in color. I feel like there s an importance in this word as it is repeated countless of times in this chapter. Felicia would glance out the

5 window and would see this tree. She also used it as a symbolism of her hopes and dreams as she was being evicted from the house at the beginning of the chapter. This purple in colored tree, is probably somewhat a relation to the color of the cover book. Abuelita This is the spanish word for grandma. It is mentioned twice, once in the beginning of the chapter, as she hear her granddaughter cry out to the dead jacaranda flowers. The second time would be when Felicia used this word to address the lady that volunteered to help snap a photo of the mothers and their children, but then came the drive by shooting. Waiting As I came across this word on page 34, as she used this word to describe how she felt in both ways. One would be waiting on someone, the other would be waiting for freedom, for love from Mrs.Calhoun. I found this rather interesting and felt there was importance behind this word as it describes the feelings of Felicia in depth. Through most of the story she describes her job as cleaning the house, but there was more to that in this job. She felt the need to step into the world of intimacy rather than just stay back and keep distance from her bosses. Why did she feel the need to receive love from Mrs.Calhoun?