Summary Of The Satirical Comedy By Josefina Lopez

1. The satirical comedy by Josefina Lopez, explores the difficulties of being a Mexican girl who immigrates to the United States with her family. Culturally, her parents tout the virtues of being a “good girl” and the importance of marriage, while at the same time telling Maria she can be anything she wants in America, if she works hard for it. When Ricardo first gets his family to America, he says to Maria, “You can take advantage of all the opportunities offered to you…you can be anything you want to be!” (pg. 20) Maria believes her father, and pursues an equal playing field with boys in the neighborhood, and her goals for her future. She quickly finds out that old cultural expectations from her parent’s era will be hard for them to break, even in the new country. On page 27, when Maria is excited about a scholarship to college she has been awarded, her father says, “Why don’t you just get married like most decent women and be a housewife?” The machismo is still strong in her father and his treatment and expectations of Maria are buried in his fear of her shamming him. I think some parents fear the advancement of their children, educationally, because they will not understand them and the parents will be made to look stupid in their children’s eyes.

The American dream is alluring from far away, but as with any dream sacrifices are made to achieve them. Acclimating to another culture, invariably means giving up parts of the old one in order to fit in. Being anything you want, The American Dream, is misleading because class in America plays a very large role in one’s success or lack of, as the family finds out living in the ghetto. Maria gleefully expresses her love of this new place, “Estados Unidos, I don’t even know you and I already love you!” when Ricardo tell her all of the wonderful reasons he wanted his family to move the the United States