“If you see her, give her my best and tell her that I hope she is happy. Tell her I’m happy for her.” Oh Trina, I thought, why didn’t you wait? Even if I didn’t write, what the hell did that matter? Jesus, girl, didn’t you take consideration the nights I’ve spent making love to illusions of you?… I’ve built up mañanas of us together and how it would be…Dammit, Trina, I didn’t touch you ‘cause I wanted it to be great when we got married—and I saved you for another cat. Dammit, dammit” (271-272).
The difference between love and sexual relationships in Piri Thomas’s Down These Mean Streets is evident through Piri’s relationship with Trina versus the relationships he has with other women. True love is depicted through Piri’s relationship with Trina because he made a decision to not sleep with her until they are married as opposed to his interactions with other women with whom he just slept around with numerous times to relieve himself (sexually or angrily). After Piri finds out that Trina got married while he was in prison, Piri is devastated. He thinks about all the times that could have been, saying “I’ve built up mañanas of us together and how it would be… I didn’t touch you ’cause I wanted it to be great when we got married.” With Trina he seems to understand that having sex with someone can be a special and important moment but when it comes to other women, Piri doesn’t care whether him sleeping with them affects them or not, he just sleeps with them because he can.
Claim…
Piri Thomas doesn’t seem to make a point about domestic abuse or sexism even though it is evident throughout his novel. Domestic abuse and sexism is a serious issue that has been normalized in Latinx American households/culture.
Article…
“Female and Relationship Devaluation among African American and Latino American Youth: Is What’s Normal Really Normal?”
“According to social learning theory (Bandura, 1986), childhood experiences among important family role models have long-term implications for the child’s relationships. Research has shown that when children observe hostility in their parents’ relationships, it is linked to prospective hostility in their own later relationships (Collins, 2003; Stocker & Richmond, 2007).”
“All Latino participants who reported exposure to female devaluation stated that their fathers or step-fathers physically abused their mothers. Examples of the comments from our participants were “He [father] used to beat my mom in front of me and my little brothers” and “My dad used to get really mad at my mom and start breaking things and hitting my mother.” Existing research implies a severe concern related to intimate partner violence in the Latino American family.”
Love is an important theme in all the novels we read. It is a very broad theme that can be broken down to two main types of love; romantic love and familial love. Although the focus of our key concept is romantic love, familial love ultimately has an affect on how romantic love is portrayed in the novels. The article “Female and Relationship Devaluation among African American and Latino American Youth: Is What’s Normal Really Normal?” (published in 2010) discusses how “beliefs and social norms regarding female and relationship devaluation” influences African American and Latino American boys perceive women devaluation and why it happens. The results of the study showed that Latino boys thought that Latina women like to be abused physically and mentally. The article states, “all Latino participants who reported exposure to female devaluation stated that their fathers or step-fathers physically abused their mothers.” The article proceeds to make a statement that “research implies a severe concern related to intimate partner violence in the Latino American family” similar to when they previously said “research has shown that when children observe hostility in their parents’ relationships, it is linked to a prospective hostility in their own later relationships.” The abuse that happens in relationships in Latinx American families is because they are exposed to it at a young age and grow up with it, primarily impacting the way women are treated.