Under The Feet Of Jesus Analysis

According to Viramontes, the unique challenges by Latina females is caused greatly by their ethnic background. Often women are oppressed by society, but when the issue is of color these challenges are harder to avoid. This does not only occur in this novel, but exists today in the real world. Many Latina females are often discriminated and harassed by societal influences, which makes them feel forced into specific roles. As seen in Under the Feet of Jesus, Estrella is a victim of these ongoing challenges, for being part of a low socioeconomic status, lack of education, and not being a legal U.S. citizen. Being a part of a low socioeconomic status gives rise to many issues that these families have to deal with. The main concern these families have is how they are going to monetarily provide for their family. In the novel, Estrella’s family lives pay check to pay check to provide for the basic living necessities. “It was always a question of work, and work
depended on the harvest, the car running, their health, the conditions of the road, how long the money held out, and the weather, which meant they could depend on nothing” (Viramontes 4). These negatively affect Estrella because of the average U.S. citizen not having to overcome these types of obstacles. The low socioeconomic status that the family does not give them the same opportunities as a U.S. citizen. Due to lack of income the entire family has to work in the fields of California picking fruits. Estrella is not able to receive the proper education due to the fact that she has to provide her labor in the fields to help out her family financially. The struggles become highlighted towards Estrella when society views her as an immigrant laborer without a proper education.
It is proven throughout the novel that Estrella struggles the most with her literacy when she is being educated. “She had opened the tool chest and all that jumbled steel inside the box, the iron bars and things with handles, the funny-shaped objects, seemed as confusing and foreign as the alphabet she could not decipher” (Viramontes 24). The tools are shown to be just a “man’s job” reminding Estrella on how she is not able to understand tools. This reflects her thoughts on school and how the language barrier between English and Spanish confuses her causing her to feel powerless. Her lack of education causes her to be unable to understand the English language in school. Combined with her English barrier, she has the disadvantage of having parents without a proper education. Estrella is unable to get the help necessary to guide her to better understand the material she learns at
school. Being an undocumented citizen in the United States does not give you equal opportunities that American citizens receive. Aside from not being able to receive the proper education and finical help, immigrants are often looked down upon in American society. Estrella’s experiences discrimination in school by her teacher, “But some of the teachers were more concern about the dirt under her fingernails. They inspected her head for lice…” (Viramontes 24). Her teachers think less of her for being herself and rather focuses on her hygiene and physical appearance to be perfect as oppose to teaching her school based materials. Aside from her judgments at school, Estrella is also discriminated at the hospital, when she needs help bring Alejo to the hospital, she is not assisted. “Maybe, Estrella asked again, but this time the nurse didn’t even look as she filed the folder away” (Viramontes 148). Estrella attempts to get assistance from the nurse, but due to the fact that she is undocumented along with her family and would require more work to assist them, they are ignored. This relates to the real world in which undocumented families do not have access to medical care and not prioritized due to them not having citizenship.