Any Small Goodness

As the novel progresses, Arturo’s growth progresses with it and his worldview changes accordingly. Excepting a run-in with a troublesome gang on the way to basketball practice, Arturo has remained innocent, sheltered by his parents’ love and Abuelita’s fierce loyalty. However, such protection can hardly last forever, and soon Arturo and his siblings must contend with challenges to their innocence. Arturo’s character develops as he comes of age amidst these challenges.

Take, for instance, the night of the school dance. Arturo and Luis’s band, Mega Mango, is set to perform, and Papi shuttles their equipment to the venue. Throughout the novel, Papi represents strength and work ethic, and Arturo frequently turns to him as an example of goodness. Arturo explains early in the novel, “My father’s the kind of person who removes his hat in a restaurant and blesses his plate of tacos” (13), which characterizes Papi as someone who preserves formal manners of the past. However, as Arturo soon learns, Papi’s decency isn’t enough to shield him from intimidation or threats of violence. As Papi drives to the dance venue, several gang members ride alongside him, drinking beer and teasing Papi about his car’s lagging speed. The gang members taunt: “Oye, pinche viejo, get a horse! Better yet, get a jackass old man!” (81). In English, “viejo” translates to “old man,” and “pinche” is a form of profanity. Papi has never been similarly disrespected in the novel; Arturo, by contrast, calls him “macho” and associates him with an “Aztec god” (81-2). However, driving through the barrio, Arturo suddenly understands its willingness to threaten a childhood ideal, reducing a proud, responsible father to a “damn old man.”

Arturo and Luis’s band, Mega Mango, suffers a similar confrontation. Introduced early in the novel, Mega Mango represents Arturo and Luis’s innocent youth and playful relationship as brothers. Eager to show off his trumpet skills, Luis forms Mega Mango with other kids in the neighborhood and lets Arturo play the gourd, a simple percussion instrument. Arturo admits that he doesn’t “exactly ooze musical talent” (25) and likens their music to “totally noise” (26). It’s clear, then, that Mega Mango is less an attempt at serious music and more an opportunity to bond with friends and enjoy a childhood hobby. 

However, when Johnston revisits Mega Mango in this section, the circumstances are slightly more mature. At first, at the dance, Mega Mango charms the audience with its spontaneity. This moment, however, is interrupted when the gang members enter the gym. The gang “brings the general feel of threat” (85), punctuating their insults with a “demon grin” (86). The gang immediately changes the mood of the dance: Innocent fun turns into a confrontation, and Arturo’s shirt soaks through with sweat. To make matters worse, Luis plays a song that means “Go With God.” This is a religious phrase but can also be twisted into an insult. Arturo acknowledges this, realizing that it’s “not what [Mega Mango] really mean” and cringing as Luis includes a few notes that often signify “the worst thing you can say of someone’s mother” (87). In confronting the gang, Luis twists the song away from its spiritual meaning, turning it into profanity. In parallel, Mega Mango similarly loses its innocence. Its music is not exuberant but vengeful; it does not unify the Rodriguez family but instead exposes them to harm.

This loss of innocence is especially apparent in the attack on the Rodriguez house. Rosa, obsessed with pink, has asked for a pink lunch box to take to first grade. Papi is happy to please her and buys a lunch box “cute enough to make you puke” (93). However, one night, everything changes. The family is in the kitchen, eating tacos de chilorio, almost ready for bed. Food is a common motif in the novel, often paralleling characters’ emotions, the food here highlights their comfort, which is about to be ruined. When a rain of gunfire smashes through the kitchen windows, Rosa’s lunch box “explodes to smithereens” (96). Though no one is hurt in the attack, the lunch box’s destruction prompts deeper concerns. In many ways, the lunch box represents Rosa: Rosa’s name literally means “pink,” and she shares the lunch box’s cuteness. When the lunch box is destroyed, it underscores Rosa’s—and all other barrio children’s—vulnerability to violence. Rosa absorbs this “lesson in ugliness,” and Arturo realizes that “not all the pink things in the world would make her smile” (98). In an instant, Rosa loses her innocence, and she’s suddenly not represented as a child anymore.

However, the gang does not exist without opposition, and a committed community works to counteract their threats. At the dance, teachers and students “form a barrier of bulk between the punks and the rest of us,” affecting a “show of righteous force” (87). Similarly, Officer Paster replaces Rosa’s lunch box, and Rosa’s “eyes go big as plates” as she cries happily (102); this simile suggests a sense of abundance after the events of the night threatened to take comfort and safety away. Arturo may end this chapter with a note of skepticism—convinced that “love’s always at risk” (103)—but these examples of goodness provide a note of hope, foreshadowing the novel’s happy end and its defining lesson about The Value of Family and Community.