Summary Of La Joyita To La Ocho By Graciela Limón

Graciela Limón is a Latina writer whose parents are Mexican immigrants. She introduces her book with the following dedication “I dedicate The River Flows North to my mother and father, immigrants from Mexico, who made it possible for their children to achieve the Dream.” She is already introducing us to her identity and purpose of this book. Limón’s two distinctive cultures from being an American and having Mexican immigrant parents gives her a different way of seeing the impacts of immigration in the world. This allows her to excellently present a new story. This story defies the image of immigrants in America because we are all merely humans. Limón invokes the borderlands theory presented by Gloria Anzaldúa to further enhance this new story.

She says that the group struggled to figure out whether Cerda was “Tejano or Mexicano” (6) and that he spoke with a mixture of Spanish and English. He introduces himself to the group in a rude manner and says “I don’t want to know where you’re from or where you’re going. I don’t expect to hear anything about except your pinche name” (7). Then, as the journey went along we eventually had a shift in point of view to tell Cerda’s story. This shift starts with Cerda asking “was I Tejano or Mexicano?” and went on to say “I spoke English and Spanish, but most of the time I didn't even know how I was talking” (114). Throughout Cerda telling the reader his story we learn that he always felt like he didn't belong, separated, and like a loner. Intersectionality was heavily displayed through Cerda and with this, he struggled with his identity all of his life. However, this did not initially appeal to me because Limón presented Leonardo Cerda as a disliked character by not only the group but the reader in the beginning half of the portion of the book. He even said “I was a real asshole” (120). But this was the exact purpose. Cerda struggled with his intersectionality and became a single story. He was a rude coyote who did not care about anything or anyone but getting money but that was not exactly the case. That was just what the group initially saw because of the single story they were told about coyotes. But, Cerda did care about people. He eventually asked to learn about the groups individual stories and helped the young child find what was left of his mother. Here we see how the group acted based on the single story. They jumped to conclusions and were constantly filled with distrust. But Limón also shows us how the world acts on a single story through Cerda’s story as well. Limón shows us that anyone, even a character like Cerda, have more than one story