Silence In Under The Feet Of Jesus By Viramontes

Silence is a powerful word with great meaning for humans of all cultures. Silence is associated with great wisdom and understanding, or correlated with a failure of humanity, as Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. famously noted “in the end we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends.” However, silence is also a powerful weapon that has been used to suppress the voices and rights of minority groups in America for generations. In Under the Feet of Jesus by Viramontes, silent speech is emphasized in all the characters as they struggle to survive under harsh conditions as immigrants. Valdez affirms the curse of silence against minority characters in Zoot Suit, when Henry Reyna is wrongly accused of a crime with no means

In interrogation, Henry is treated with extreme racism and unfairly called an “animal,” setting the unjust reality that nothing Henry says or does will prevent him from being accused. During this scene, El Pachuco acts not only as a guide for Henry but can expression of his inner thoughts and a voice of sympathy, as he makes several remarks to Henry such as “Don’t tell ‘em shit,” and “Spit in his pinche face.” These remarks all lead to El Pachuco’s final remark, filled with the truth of the situation that “you don’t deserve it, ese, but you’re going to get it anyway,” (Valdez 32). In this scene, cultural oppression and the truth of silence is emphasized as Henry has no means of defending himself against the justice system that identified him as a criminal based on race. Even though Henry did not commit the crime and is innocent, his voice is completely lost to society and must manifest itself in the form of an inner-narrator, one who lets the readers and audience know of Henry’s forced audience to spark change in how minorities are treated. Valdez uses El Pachuco to instigate cultural change and express the injustice of racial profiling and minority

In the very beginning, Fe experiences a broken heart when her fiancé calls off their wedding, and unlike the typical lost-love silence trope seen in many novels, Fe uses her voice and screams for days on end. Castillo writes “[Fe] screaming and tearing the tiny bathroom apart…letting out one loud continuous scream that could have woken the dead…Fe did not stop screaming even when Sofi announced ten days later that she was going to get Tom,” a reaction that is one of the first scenes where readers learn about the character Fe (Castillo 30). Here Castillo emphasizes not only the voice that Fe has as she boldly expresses her heartbreak through screaming, but also the lack of silence in Sofi when she chooses to confront Fe’s fiancé about the dropped engagement. This trend continues between these two characters later in the novel, when Sofi confronts Fe about her calling La Loca crazy and judging