Stealing A Bag Of Potato Chip Critical Analysis

In the article “Stealing a Bag of Potato Chips and other Acts of Resistance”, the reader is introduced to a group of fifteen year old Latino gang associated boys who enter a store by the name of Sam’s Liquor Store in a group of four. Although the boys are aware of the store’s strict policy of only two boys allowed in at one time, all four teenagers enter the store and try to make purchases. The reader is introduced to one of the gang members whose name is Flaco, and another one named Mike. As the store clerk yells and threatens to call the police on the gang of boys for disobeying the store’s four person rule, Mike is outraged and informs the clerk that he was going to pay for the bag of Fritos Flamin’ Hot chips in his hand, but now that the clerk acted out in the way he did, he refused to pay for it and dashed out the door. The author of the article pays for the stolen chips, but the clerk had already called the police. …show more content…
The clerk at Sam’s may have been concerned that too many kids in his store meant that he could not keep an eye on all of them” (Rios 52). The store clerk in the article “Stealing a Bag of Chips”, in looking at the gang of Latino boys uses his own personal front to stereotype the boys into thinking that they will do something wrong in his store based off of prior instances that may have caused issues in the past with customers that were like these boys. A personal front includes “appearance, manner, and style of dress … as well as gender, race, and age” (). The store clerk appears to have a personal front against the boys, meaning their impression management efforts are successful in the way that they were now viewed by the store clerk after Mike’s