Preview

Looking For Work By Gary Soto Analysis

Powerful Essays
Open Document
Open Document
1866 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
Looking For Work By Gary Soto Analysis
Our parents and culture often have an influence on who we are. For centuries,one's culture has impacted the way an individual may view his or hers environment. Culture is passed down from parents and relatives to the younger generation which allows both culture and our parents to influence who we are and how we value life. In the story, “Looking for Work” by Gary Soto, tells a story of his younger years where he wanted his family to be like the ones he saw on television because they were wealthy and perfect. In another story, “Arm Wrestling with My Father” by Brad Manning, who recalls a time where he and his father showed no affection towards one another but changed over time. Being in a similar situation as both of these authors, I am able …show more content…
According to Soto, because he was raised by his mother’s ideals, it shaped him to be who he was. Soto writes about himself at age nine who is Mexican American and wants to become wealthy so he looks for a job. He gets the idea of becoming rich by fantasizing about having a proper family that he sees on television and hopes that his family would be just like them. His family were indeed different from what he depicted because they did not understand the point in changing for white people to like them. In the end of the story, everyone was gone from the house and he continues to look for another job. In one part of the story Soto says, “Leave It to Beaver was the program I replayed in my mind: ‘May I have the mashed potatoes?’ asks Beaver with a smile. ‘Sure, Beav,’ replies Wally as he taps the corners of his mouth with a starched napkin. The father looks on in his suit. The mother, decked out in earrings and a pearl necklace, cuts into her steak and blushes. Their conversation is politely clipped. Our own talk at dinner was loud with belly laughs and marked by our pointing forks at one another. The subjects were commonplace.” (Pg?). After watching television as a young child, Soto always …show more content…
So he went out to look for a job at such an early age to help make them live lavishly but learned from his family that money and wealth does not mean anything to them because they do not need to change for anyone to be accepted in society. For me, I had a similar situation with Soto because I come from an average income family, but was still on a tight budget. When Soto described how he wanted his family to be like those on TV, I agreed. I wanted to have a family that did not have any problems with my parents and siblings and wanted all my neighbors and classmates to like me because I was one of the only Asians in my community. As I grew up older and questioned why I thought this way, I began to realize that sometimes I would have to deal with things with what I had or have because nothing is ever going to be perfect. By the time I entered high school, I knew that the family that was by my side was perfect for me because I know that I am lucky enough to have a caring family that many do not get to say they have. For Manning, he never noticed his father's affection when they played arm-wrestling and he lost constantly until he was old enough and won against his dad. He noticed things has changed over time like his father becoming weaker and he will need to be

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Satisfactory Essays

    Looking for Work

    • 276 Words
    • 2 Pages

    The family life on TV attracted the narrator because the family on the TV show was so uncomplicated in its routine. The narrator thinks that his life was complicated and was broken. He thinks that he didn’t have a rich life. He wanted to become wealthy. He was attracted to the prefect life of the white family. As a result, he wanted to behave like a white family and want to be respected. However, his desires have little impact on his family because they didn’t understand why Soto wanted them to like whit people. Their family didn’t want to behave that way.…

    • 276 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    Victor, a character in the story “Seventh Grade” by Gary Soto changes in the story many times, including being nervous, being embarrassed, and being happy. In the first place, at the beginning of the story, Victor is nervous about whether or not Teresa will like him. In the text it states “He raised his eyes slowly and looked around. No Teresa. He lowered his eyes, pretending to study, then looked slowly to the left. No Teresa. He turned a page in the book and stared at some math problems that scared him because he knew he would have to do them eventually. He looked at the right. Still no sign of her. He stretched out lazily in an attempt to disguise his snooping.”(Soto 1). This displays that Victor is nervous because he tries to see whether…

    • 318 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    In Gary Soto story, he tells about a nine-year-old Mexican American boy comparing his family with the American TV show. He wants his family to be wealthy and more traditional like white families,he wish his family could be dressing properly like a man with suit and woman decked out in earrings and a pearl necklace that he seen on the show. However, his mother did not have money and times to participate his desire,and he was ignored. Therefore,he began to looking for work, he thought money is the only thing that can create a wealthy family, and if he gets a job he would turns his family into a better life. According to the story,he earned money by helping his neighborhood.…

    • 183 Words
    • 1 Page
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    Background is not the only element of culture that shapes our view of others and the world. Parental influence is another element of culture that shapes our view of others and the world. Parents can sometimes influence how someone views others and the world. In Teresa Acosta’s poem “my mother pieced quilts” the author views her mother’s work of piecing quilts. Teresa Acosta admires her mother’s work of piecing quilts. But it was just that every morning I awoke to these October ripened canvases. This supports the claim because this is a somewhat influence of what the author sees the world. I remember when I was ten or eleven years old there was this lady who made scarves, hats and blankets. This view of the winter attire showed me a way of…

    • 177 Words
    • 1 Page
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Everyone is raised in their own ethnic surroundings. This is mainly based upon the ethnicity to which one belongs, the type of parents by which one is brought up, or the “Americanization” of parents from another culture. An individual informs others of their cultural standards through their actions, their initiative, their respect of family, and their futuristic thinking. These aspects build up one’s personality and lifestyle.…

    • 351 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    A Pie Soto Analysis

    • 637 Words
    • 3 Pages

    “A car [honks] and the driver [knows]” Gary explains. He stole the pie, and Gary knows that the driver saw him, which only makes him feel guiltier. Another bystander, “Mrs. Hancock [stands] on her lawn, hands on hip, and she [knows]”. He thinks she knows that he stole the pie, because when she puts her hands on her hips, it makes him feel like he is being scolded. Even his mom “peeling a mountain of potatoes at the Red-Spud factory, knew” and the fact that it is his mom knowing his guilt only causes him to feel more regretful. The paranoia that Soto feels causes us to feel that he really is guilty of stealing the pie, and so he tries to escape this guiltiness anyway he…

    • 637 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    It is important for children to make their own decisions on how they look at the world. But it is up to the parent to influence their child on how the outlook is. Children get most of their perception of culture from their parents. Three ideas that play a major role on a child’s perspective on culture are: social interactions between parent and child, the passing down of heirlooms, and emotional connections. These concepts are seen in the poems Hanging Fire by Audre Lorde and My Mother Pieced Quilts by Teresa Palomo Acosta.…

    • 390 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    Since there are not many books that focus on the Latino, or the Chicano, culture, he tries to write stories so children, who are from that background, could see their selves and could actually relate to the stories that they were reading. After he made this discovery, Soto wrote children books such as “Too Many Tamales” where the protagonist, Maria, is helping her family make tamales for her mother’s wedding. While they were cooking they let Maria see her mother’s wedding ring and Maria loses the ring in one of the many tamales that they were making (Too Many Tamales, Putnam). In another one of his books “Novio Boy” His main character, Rudy, is taking a girl, Patricia, out on a date and he goes to one of his friends to seek dating advice. Later on he realizes that he does not have enough money to take her out on the date that he would want to (Novio Boy, Putnam). By writing books of the genre, Soto is trying to help connect his writing with a day in a typical Childs life, and even though this book was written in the 1990’s it still applies to today’s teenagers. He is letting children and teenagers know that mistakes happen and we will encounter problems, however, we will get through them. While in an interview Soto once stated how he “believed that the connection Latino teens feel to his work is mainly one of pride” (Gary Soto, Ted Fabiano,). Although Mexican Americans do not have an extensive…

    • 1755 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    Analysis Essay Soto: 1996

    • 821 Words
    • 4 Pages

    Soto starts off his story with visual anecdote thinking about the actions between right and wrong doing and a greater sense of God within his daily life. However, Soto then internally struggles within himself in thinking about the pros and cons of sin. Gary Soto knows well “enough about hell to stop [himself] from stealing. [He is] holy in almost every bone,” as well as recounts his vision of angles in his backyard along with the sound messages of God within the plumbing underneath the house. Though sinning, Soto greatly portrays the significance of God within his life through his young innocence and youthfully clean life so far ahead. Near temptation soon wavers Soto’s integrity at a German Market where a rack of pies catches his eye and “boredom [makes him] sin” while sweating the “juice of guilt,” Soto cannot come “to decide which to steal.” Gary Soto comes to describe the process of how he came to sin such in a shameful tone of writing, his morals nearly thrown away and his first true sin is committed. Soon after stealing the pie, Soto begins to be filled with a growing guilt. Muttering that “No one saw” in reassurance to himself illustrates his growing anxiety and paranoia. Knowing that sinning equals wrong doing, Soto mentions the “shadow of angels” and “proximity of God howling” under the house as a distancing from his faith and deeper into the sin regardless of the guilty feeling.…

    • 821 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Children often do not understand our parent’s intentions for growth until we are able to empathize with them. When a child is misunderstood by their parent, they feel neglected and have trouble understanding others. In the Joy Luck Club, four Chinese women immigrate to the United States in the mid-1900s during the Chinese Communist Revolutions. Settling in a Americanized country proved to be challenging due to cultural differences, language barriers, and conflicted history in China. The relationships these women formed with their daughters were influenced by new and old customs. In The Joy Luck Club, Amy Tan illustrates how a relationship between a parent and child can change over time due to vast differences in beliefs and expectations.…

    • 592 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    According to Charon, culture is one of the social patterns in society. It arises in social interaction. It is taught in social interaction. Culture is made up of three smaller sets of patterns: (1) rules, (2) beliefs, and (3) values (Charon p. 56). For these two peer croups, the contrast in their lifestyles and culture can be attributed to the influence, involvement, and expectations of their parents. The parents of the Brothers expect that their children will do well in school, they expect them to stay out trouble, and to refrain from the use of drugs and alcohol. Thus, from their families, the Brothers take away a contradictory outlook. On the one hand, they see that hard work on the part of their parents has not gotten them very far, an implicit indictment of the openness of the opportunity structure. On the other hand, they are encouraged by these same people to have high hopes for the future (Macleod p. 167). In contrast, the Hallway Hangers' families do not hold high aspirations, they do not expect that…

    • 1063 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    How does your culture influence the way you look at the world and others? A person’s culture always influences the way they see the world and others. The Literary texts “My mother pieced quilts” by Teresa Paloma Acosto, the short story “Everyday Use” by Alice Walker and the letter “An Indian Fathers Plea” by Robert Lee. Each of these Literary Works show how a person’s culture is always effects the way a person looks at the world or other people.…

    • 1016 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    PlainSong Essay

    • 1262 Words
    • 3 Pages

    “Parents can only give good advice or put them on the right paths, but the final forming of a person's character lies in their own hands.” People are born into situations that are not always ideal for growing up, and that is often related to said person following in the steps of a poorly guided life. These situations are not excuses for following that path because though the situation might be very bad the individual still can make their own choices and decisions, and can change the way they live life. It is harder to make change, and be different than those around you, but it is entirely possible. Even without direct guidance or proper role models people still know right from wrong and can observe the people around them seeing how to act and how not to act. Following the path of change and being an individual is not easy but on that path whether you have no parental guidance, or role models, or even if you have the perfect life, it is still your choice to act right or wrongly. If that path is taken correctly and the experiences are looked at with a positive mindset, things are essential to a successful life. The shift in parental roles in Plainsong impacted the children positively due to the positive developments in their characters by portraying commitment, work ethic, intestinal fortitude, and the ability to determine right…

    • 1262 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    Bless Me Ultima

    • 577 Words
    • 3 Pages

    An experience that gives Antonio a different outlook on life is being raised in Guadalupe. Growing up in this rural area has put him very close to nature and the land. This shapes his outlook on life because it connects him to his family, since his uncles are very close to the land. This also makes Antonio more mature because it develops a love and respect for the land. Being raised in Guadalupe also sets up a distinctive perception for Antonio because he lives in a middle class environment. For example, in Antonio’s household his father and mother both work hard and Antonio is given chores and discipline. This shapes his maturity because it does not make him spoiled or self-indulgent. It also builds his character because it makes him work hard to accomplish his goals.…

    • 577 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    The world is filled with an overwhelming number of cultural differences. Some of the many examples of these differences are; perception, behavior, gestures, and language. All of which can greatly affect professional and personal relationships. As the world rapidly becomes more diverse, the number cross cultural parents increases. Raising children in a cross cultural home is a job in itself. In some instances, parents may not be too different in their ways. In other situations, cultural differences may cause stress for not only the parents, but it can have a negative effect on the children. Parents should have…

    • 1092 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Better Essays