Story Analysis: It's That It Hurts By Thomas Rivera

We as humans all seem to put ourselves into factions, groups, like troupes of wallabies fighting with one another for territory. Us humans make stereotypes and group people, with "labels". In the story, " It's that it hurts" by Thomas Rivera, is about a Mexican American boy in the 1950s and 1960s. He got involved in a physical fight and is quite apprehensive about being expelled from school. He yearns to become a telephone operator, contrary to the typical jobs Mexican Americans had at the time, lowly paid agricultural jobs. Now knowing about the high chance of being expelled, he feels even worse. Especially because Mexicans were discriminated at the time period of this story. The boy (who remains nameless to the readers) makes an important …show more content…
It is not necessarily the boy’s fault for getting into a rumpus with the bullies at his school in the first place. On line 111 he clearly states that the older kids kept pushing him into the bully until they fought. He also must have been irked by the fact that they address him as “Mex”, how the nurses assumed that he was unhygienic, and he must have especially been exasperated when his teacher said, “ The Mexican kid got into a fight, and beat up a couple of our boys,” (lines 132-134) making it seem like the protagonist was of no importance. This was a conversation between the school principal and the boy’s teacher. “No, not bad...but what do I do? … No, I guess not, they could care less if I expel him… They need him in the fields.” (lines 133- 137) The statement “They need him in the fields,” shows the stereotypes the school administrators make about his race. Additionally, it is shown that even the dead are more appreciated, than the living Mexican Americans. As the boy walks by the cemetery, he says, “I'm halfway home. The cemetery is real pretty...What scares me most is when we're leaving after a burial and I look up and I read the letters on the arch over that say, Don't forget me. It’s like I can hear all the dead people buried there saying these words and then the sound of these words stay in my mind and sometimes even if I don't look up when I pass through the gate, I still see them. But not this one, this one is real pretty.” The boy continues talking about the looks of the cemetery. “Just lots of soft grass and trees, I guess that’s why when they bury somebody here, they don't even cry.” Then he states that he enjoys the beauty of the area but the state has limitations on that too. “I like playing here. If only they would let us fish in the little creek that runs through here, there’s lots of fish. But no, you even need a license to fish and they won't even sell us one