The Hammon And The Beans Essay, Research Paper

In & # 8220 ; The Hammon and the Beans & # 8221 ; writer Am? anti-racketeering law Par? diethylstilbestrols writes about the jobs of Mexican-American kids turning up in poorness. The narrative takes topographic point around 1926 in a fictional South of Texas scene of Jonesville-on-the-Grande, under the shadows of Fort Jones. This scene is evocative with Par? des place of Brownsville and historic Fort Brown, established in 1846 to house military personnels during the Mexican-American War and subsequently used to support the boundary line.

The narrative features child characters who observe, but do non to the full understand the edginess of the grownup universe of south Texas. Our immature, nameless storyteller sets the tone by depicting his place which is his gramps & # 8217 ; s dirty, xanthous, big-framed house. He besides notes why his female parent hated it. & # 8220 ; They had fleas, she said. & # 8221 ; He goes on to render how the people of Jonesville-on-the-Grande became in sync with the modus operandi on the station at Fort Jones. & # 8220 ; At eight, the whistling from the station wash sent us kids off to school. The whole town stopped for tiffin with the midday whistling, and after tiffin everybody went back to work when the station wash said it was one O & # 8217 ; clock. & # 8221 ;

As the immature male child recounts & # 8220 ; boundary line problems & # 8221 ; and why the soldiers came back to old Fort Jones, he casually introduces Chonita. Chonita is one of his playfellows every bit good as a household friend. Her female parent did his household & # 8217 ; s wash for usage of a one-room hovel on a vacant secret plan of land belonging to his gramps.

Chonita plays a instead big function in this immature male child & # 8217 ; s memory. He describes how after the station & # 8217 ; s flag went down every dark, Chonita would walk to the soldier & # 8217 ; s muss halls and ticker through the screen as they stuffed themselves. She would stand at that place until they were finished so that the cooks would g

harangue her the leftovers.

He had merely moved into the vicinity when a male child invited him to hear Chonita do a address. He saw she was a scraggy miss with soiled pess. All of the kids were looking on as she stood atop an back street fencing. Everyone was shouting, & # 8220 ; Speech! Address! Let Chonita do a address! Talk in English Chonita! & # 8221 ; She yelled out, & # 8220 ; Give me the hammon and the beans! Give me the hammon and the beans! & # 8221 ; Every eventide Chonita would do her address as the immature male child waited until they could travel drama.

One twenty-four hours the immature male child fell badly and when he was cured Chonita was non about. As he grew through the 1930s he thought of her and the hammon and the beans frequently. Finally, he learned that Chonita had passed off from an unwellness.

The dark of Chonita & # 8217 ; s decease, everyone was truly sad, but the immature male child merely felt unusual. The physician told the male child & # 8217 ; s father that Chonita & # 8217 ; s male parent was in a instead joyous temper. The male child & # 8217 ; s father told the physician that the adult male was non Chonita & # 8217 ; s biological male parent and that her existent male parent had been shot and hanged. The two work forces proceeded with a conversation about radicalism, and came to no important decision. The immature male child headed away to bed at his female parent & # 8217 ; s petition. As he lay there non to the full asleep, he thought about Mexican hero Emiliano Zapata. He heard the bugle blaring at the station and idea of Chonita in heaven cheering, & # 8220 ; Give me the hammon and the beans! & # 8221 ; He began to shout, and non cognizing why he was shouting he felt better.

Using & # 8220 ; The Hammon and the Beans & # 8221 ; Am? anti-racketeering law Par? diethylstilbestrols described the Brownsville of his young person. Par? diethylstilbestrols wrote with a darkly tragic sarcasm of a immature male child & # 8217 ; s first brush with decease. I believe Chonita was a symbol. A symbol of how Mexican-Americans struggled against poorness, bias, and loss of cultural individuality.