Similarities Between 'Looking For Work And I Just Want To Be Average'

Parker Vest
10/18/13
English 1A
2:10pm - 3:30pm
Glimpses Into the Past
I always believed that I had the perfect family. My parents (and Santa) gave me everything that I ever wanted, my sister and I were best friends, and life was all about having fun. Of course, I was only five at the time. My life was like a sitcom on TV. Boy, how things have changed. The authors Gary Soto and Mike Rose give the reader a glimpse into their childhoods into their stories, “Looking For Work” and “I Just Want To Be Average”. They show us how they both changed their views on life at a crucial point in their lives. They show us their youthful days in their specific surroundings, how their character is shown by helping others, the motivation or lack of it that drives them, and how
they got their inspiration from the very different type of educations that they received. Most first generation Americans have an idea of what life is going to be like. The ideal dad wears a suit every day, and Mom makes him breakfast every morning while he reads the paper. The family watches TV together every day, almost like a ritual as the perfect American family. In the short story “Looking For Work” , Gary wants his life to be just like this. He realizes that he needs to get that suit and start making some money. Gary is motivated by money and goes “Looking for Work” in his neighborhood. He does a variety of things from yard work to getting his neighbor a Pepsi from the local store. Gary starts to realize doing all of these jobs and errands makes him happy. Just simply helping the neighborhood is a fun experience for him. If Gary only gets some fruit or few cents, he is still happy that he got the job done. Starting from the bottom of the totem pole is not always easy. Mike Rose experienced this in his vocational school. He was placed in the lower level classes by accident for two years. He did not even realize that he had the lowest level teachers. Teachers at this level pretty much treat their kids as if they are not educated. Thinking that he was stupid, Mike had it hard. He was smart but treated like just one of those jocks who are trying to pass school on the easiest path. It was not until his last years at the catholic school that his biology teacher noticed that he was placed in the wrong group of kids.
Classes were simple for him throughout high school. It was not really a challenge for Rose. He did not have that urge to do better, and his friends were not really helping, either. Rose would be worrying about fitting in with his friends socially and then school. He would help them pass their classes too. Rose ends up moving into college prep classes, where he is thrown into a fast-paced environment. It is hard for Rose at first because he was used to the lower Vocational Education classes. Both stories are alike in many ways. In “Looking for Work”, Gary is writing about his childhood. Gary Soto grew up “on the industrial side of Fresno, smack against a junkyard and the junkyard’s cross eyed German Shepard.” (26 Soto). Gary was a Mexican American in a poor section of Fresno. Similarly, Mike in “I Just Wanna Be Average”, also is talking about his life. “Rose, he bellowed on our first encounter; me geekly in line in my baggy shorts” (159 Rose). Rose was even dressed geeky in his childhood. Both writers are telling stories on their lives at a young
age. Helping people is a very good trait to have when growing up. In Mike Rose’s story, “I Just Wanna Be Average “, Rose is very smart compared to his friends. During exams, his friends would cheat off of him. “We worked out a code for our multiple choice exams .He’d poke me in the back” (163Rose). Rose would help out his friends so they would not fail the class. In the same way, Gary would help his best friend Little John. “He suggested that we go to Roosevelt High School to swim. He needed five cents to make fifteen, the cost of admission, and I lent him a nickel” (29Soto).Gary lent him his hard earned money for fun. However, Gary and Rose have many differences. For one, Gary is motivated to get money and become wealthy. “I had a nine-year-old vision of wealth that would save us from ourselves.”(27Soto). Gary really wants to change his life and is motivated to get money. He wants to help his family and see them succeed as well. The perfect American family is what is motivating him, whereas Rose just wants to stay in Voc. Ed. Track at school. Rose is content where he is at in his lower level classes. Even with the potential Rose has, he is content with average. Both Gary and Rose found inspiration through different things. Gary would watch TV every day with a cup of Kool -Aid. “For weeks, I had drunk Kool-Aid and watched morning reruns of Father Knows Best, whose family was so uncomplicated in its routine that I very much wanted to imitate it “(27Soto). Gary really wanted to have the ideal American family; watching that TV show showed him what a carefree life would be like. On the other hand, Rose went to catholic school. “It took two buses to get to Our Lady of Mercy” (15Rose). He was sent to catholic school where he is surrounded by real people unlike Gary who believed that a TV show showed the reality of suburban life. Gary Soto realizes that his family is a happy and loving one that is content. He realizes that he does not need money to be happy. Gary would still like to help out with his family. Asking for work is probably not the thing to do at his age. Soto is a very young kid and still has a lot to learn. When he is older, he will know what it is like to be an ideal American family, but for now, he still has to live out his life as a kid and have fun with it. Rose learns from his time with the vocational kids that there is worth in all people from all walks of life. He takes his knowledge of the vocational kids with him and uses it to motivate himself to change the educational system. Rose goes to college and becomes a writer to tell about the problems in education, mainly that putting the worst teachers with the lowest kids is not right. The lowest kids need the best of the best educators to help them succeed in life, and to get them out of the rut of just wanting to be average. In both Gary Soto’s “Looking For Work” and Mike Rose’s “I Just Wanna Be Average”, the reader is taken back to a time in their youth. We watch them make decisions that become important to their character. We see them both helping others unselfishly. Even though their motivation comes from two different places, one from his desire to have the perfect all American family and the other to just be average, the end result is that they both end up inspiring others with their writing. I was inspired after reading these selections. I realized that I also was in the rut of just being average, but now I know that I need to stay motivated and stay in school no matter how long it takes.

Works Cited
Colombo, Gary, Robert Cullen, and Bonnie Lisle. Rereading America. Eighth Ed. New York:
Bedford/ St. Matin 's, 2010. Print