Summary Of The Way Things Work, Taking Sides By Gary Soto

Gary Soto is a very shrewd American poet, novelist, and memoirist. Being a Mexican-American, Soto emphasizes latino culture in his writings. He also uses his experiences from living in the barrios of central California to create conflicts and characters.

In the short story Mr. Soto exclaims when he was younger he pushed a lawn mower, door to door trying to find someone who would pay him to cut their grass. At the time he did not know that his area was in the lower-class bracket, “It struck me like a ball. They were poor, but I didn’t even recognize them. I left the projects and tried houses with a little luck, and began to wonder if they too housed the poor” (101). This is significant because later he speaks about how he was so oblivious to how he grew up. Later in this childhood story he stated that he wanted to become a hobo since he thought there was no jobs for him in the world since he did not want to work like his father. He exclaimed that his dad would come home with blistery hands, sit down their living room chair and stare at the television for the rest of the night. At the end of this story he starts talking about how he became who he is now, and why he fell into his career. “It’s been twenty years since I went door to door. Now I am living this other life that seems a dream. How did I get here? What line on my palm arched in a small fortune? I sit before students, before grade books, before other professors talking about books they’ve yet to write, so surprised that I’m far from that man on the sidewalk” (101). This quote from “To Be A Man,” is a very smart and somewhat humorous line, because Mr. Soto realizes that he could have easily been a hobo on that

Zinsser says “Tackle your life in easily manageable chunks .” (Zinsser, 34). In a chapter titled “The Hand Break” Soto tells the story of when he made a handbrake to help him stop and start while running down the street. “… function was to help me stop when I came racing to the end of the street.” (Soto, 13). Even though this was not a huge event in his life that created a catastrophic outcome, this is an important memory to him, which is why he shared it. This is Soto striking a “universal truth” (Zinsser, 30) which Zinsser says will help the reader relate to the memoir. Gary Soto told a story of being a young boy inventing something that he thought fun and unique, which almost everyone who still has memories locked away in their brain of being a child can relate

In, Eric Li's Ted Talk "A Tale of Two Political Systems”, he discussed the two stories he was told, which I feel exemplifies the differences in the two political systems. The first , believed by the Chinese, was that all societies develop in a linear process and will be engaged by the struggle of good vs bad or as Li stated socialism vs. capitalism and socialism will triumph. However, while in U.S. he was taught that all human societies progress in a linear process and end in a singular end. All societies must progress from singular groups that are reduced to singular individuals who are all rational. Therefore, electoral democracy will be for all and all other govern concepts are bad.

Gary Soto’s tone is filled with resentment for the evil deed he has accomplished. Realizing his actions and seeking forgiveness, this shows how innocent and spirit-minded he tended to be as a 6-year-old boy. It’s essential for people to sort their evil doings and aim to make up for them. This will make you feel better and not be loaded with torment and torture of disastrous ponderings.

deal with some of his hard times as a child. He makes it humorous because he tries to do jobs for other people that don't need to be done. For instance, he tries to rake his neighbors leaves in the middle of summer. In Soto’s “Being Mean”, his neighbor says, “It's summer, and there ain't no leaves.” This is humorous because although he did end up getting money, he was only 9 and did not consider the time of year or the jobs that he should be doing. Moreover, Soto felt very highly about his working. Although he was doing jobs that to some would be considered “degrading” he was virtuous about it and very hard-working. For example, he says, “I felt suddenly alive

Gary Soto overcame his obstacle by finally listening to his mother. “Dreading to return to work” Gary Soto went to pick grapes “... giving up and saying that I’d rather wear old clothes than stoop like a Mexican.” Gary Soto quit working in the fields because he

Gary Soto is an author of many novels, short stories, and poetry. He was born and raised in the U.S. by his Mexican American family. In his writings, he creates characters and settings influenced or surrounded by cultures and ideas similar to those he grew up and lived with. He includes common characteristics of the Mexican American people that he became familiar with growing up.

Soto’s writings in “Like Mexicans” manages to focus on a direct audience throughout the passage. The author intends to

Similarly, the poem by Jose B. Gonzalez, Autobrownography of a New England Latino, illustrates the difficulties that Gonzalez lived due to being a brown Latino. He experiences segregation and racism, but fights to become an educated man despite his color and social class. Gonzalez, like

When Gary was five his father died as the result of a factory accident, and his mother was left to raise her three children with the help of her parents. Soto describes his family as an "illiterate" family. They did not have books and were not encouraged to read. In fact, Gary did not start writing poetry until he was in college. He also is an author of

Tomas Rivera was a Chicano author, educator, and poet who was most known for his 1971 novel ..y no se lo tragó la tierra. Until the age of twenty-two, he worked alongside his parents as migrant workers and his early life inspired him to write this novel. His life ambitions to give Mexican Americans an opportunity for higher education and writing came true by donating to the Chicano Literary movement. Through the fictional book, ...y no se lo tragó la tierra, Tomás Rivera tells the story of Mexican American migrant workers from the 40’s and 50’s. Made up of fourteen short stories and thirteen vignettes, the book contained a story, The Children Couldn’t Wait, that documented a day in the lives of Mexican American children working in the field.

In the poem “Behind Grandma’s House”, Gary Soto writes about an experience he had as a young boy. He speaks of himself as being a nerdy Spanish boy who wants attention. He screams out for attention by acting out in negative ways. Most know, to bring attention to one’s self, one can acquire it by acting negatively or positively, but negative attention brings punishment. Soto obtains his grandmothers attention at the end of the poem, but he may have regretted it. Gary Soto’s “Behind Grandma’s House” is a 1952 free verse poem that uses imagery to suggest the speaker’s perspective of the story.

The speaker addresses the dilemma of being neither Mexican nor American, of traveling the trajectory between both nationalities. Because he its color of the skin and lived in a border culture, it was often assumed that he was not an American. The speaker is a men looking for freedom and a better future, an element so well-known that he is willing to risk everything to achieve his goal. There is no need for Soto to run because he is an American. Soto’s poem is emotionally and a practical clever story that many Mexicans Americans relate too.

Gary Soto, who among many things was a Mexican-American poet, many times wrote about what he knew best: his life. Growing up as a Chicano in America in the 50s and 60s, Soto worked in fields as a laborer from a young age. It is evident that coming from a Hispanic working class family greatly influenced his poem “Ambition”. As he is known for, Soto's poem is filled with imagery of everyday life, while harping on important details and themes of things that he may have seen around him., but in this instance, there was a bit of confusion. To begin with, the poem “Ambition” starts off with the line "For years our ambition was to eat/Chicken"(1-2). Without further analysis, at this point the reader is most likely confused, much like I was. Chicken? How could eating be one's goal, one's aspiration in life? The word ambition is usually associated with lofty goals. It would not seem out of place to say that one's ambition was to become a doctor or to make a better life for oneself. So the speaker in the poem could not truly believe that all that he wanted in life was to eat chicken. The outlandishness of this statement seems to be the speaker pointing huge arrows towards places in the poem that invoke deeper meaning to