Mericans By Sandra Cisneros Essay

“Mericans” by Sandra Cisneros takes place in a small city in Mexico. From the games Micaela and keeks play, where she plays a German, and he a B-Fifty-two bomber, it is inferred that the story is about a time shortly after World War 2. It tells the story of 3 children born in America waiting outside a church for their grandmother to finish her prayers. While they are waiting, two tourists approach Junior, one of the kids, and offer him gum to let them take a picture of him posing in front of the church. However, when the tourists discover that Junior speaks English, they are surprised and seem to not want to take the picture anymore. The setting of this story symbolizes how Mexican-Americans, in this case, Micaela and her siblings, live in between two different worlds without being completely accepted into either the Mexican or the American culture. The fact that there are only two settings in the story along with the Spanish words incorporated, and the encounter they have with the American tourists gives enough evidence to support the idea that setting of …show more content…
Michelle, Keeks and Junior change their language depending on who they are speaking to, but have trouble speaking or understanding both, English and Spanish. They call themselves Michelle, Keeks, and Junior, but to their grandma they are Micaela, Enrique and Alfredito. “Micaela, you may wait outside with Alfredito and Enrique. The awful grandmother says it all in Spanish, which I understand when I'm paying attention”. The narrator herself reassures that Spanish is harder for her to understand. Regardless of this, Micaela and her brothers still incorporate Spanish words into their vocabulary and use them in English sentences. Words such as La Virgen de Guadalupe, or la ofrenda. When spoken in English, they respond in English, just like they answer in Spanish why someone addresses them in Spanish. But they seem to embrace English