Like Monte in Rodriguez's Pigeons, Lucia recognizes that immigrant Mexican men feel like failures is they cannot take care of their families once they arrive in America. The author uses this described tension related to income and support to show Lucia's need to be independent and depend on no man.

In these seven passages, I found it interesting that each character maintained personality while focusing on a similar goal. Each of the authors used occupation, unemployment, expectations, or responsibility as a literary vehicle and it was fascinating to see how each story incorporated these conflicts. I enjoyed looking closely at this theme since so many characters seem to become real people when you see them committing to the real life struggle and responsibility of their work or occupation. I found that outlining characters this way connected characters that had few other similar attributes and gave a varied but intimate view...
[ View Full Essay]