Isla Virgil Suarez Summary

Reading “Isla” by Virgil Suarez makes one want to know more about the author and his life. We know he and his assumed single mom speak Spanish from her use of it within his poem and his mentioning that he speaks no English, yet. We, also, can assume the island, the monster, describing where they were from, was well-known Cuba. This best assumed when he described it as “her country, mine, that island in the Caribbean we left behind, itself a reptile-looking mass on each map, on my globe, a crocodile-like creature rising again, eating us so completely.” (Suarez, 2000). All of this we can assume from the words he said, the history of the world, and the world as we know it today. Americans know a bit about Cuba’s history and the way they have, over the years, treated their citizens. Unfortunately, we as well know how we Americans still treat the ones from Cuba.
His reaction was to society and the treatment he has seen it offer him and his mother. His mother did all she could to save him and make a better life for him; yet, as a child, he knew this but, was still very bitter and angry inside. He wanted to smash what smashed his life, as he saw it like Godzilla did. He felt Godzilla’s pain of being unwanted, hurt, seen as a misfit of sorts. He best stated this when he said, “I understood by the age of twelve what it meant to be unwanted, exiled” (Suzrez, 2000). This is how Godzilla and this boy connected, through a life of pain. A life of pain Godzilla just destroyed with anger and power, as the boy from Cuba wished he could as