MERICANS by Sandra Cisneros
... Keeks continues this pattern of distancing by relegating her to the role of the enemy when he says, “I’m Flash Gordon. You’re Ming the Merciless and the Mud People” (66). Even if one cannot identify with the characters her brother pretends to be, one can figure out what sort of character he wants her to pretend to be. By his choice of character for her he has widened the gap between the two of them, with himself as the hero and Michelle as the villain. It is interesting to note that the children’s cultural loyalties are evident in the television hero’s that they choose to mimic in play. This adoption of American pop culture icons and popular figures (the Lone Ranger, Tonto, Flash Gordon) by the children is yet another demonstration of them embracing a culture other than their native one, a distancing from the hero’s and icons of their own culture. Hurt by the unpleasant interaction with her brother, Michelle goes inside the church. Far from finding the church a warm and welcoming atmosphere, Michelle ponders, “Why do churches smell like the inside of an ear? … And why does holy water smell like tears?” Could it be that Cisneros meant the reader to associate this imagery of the church with the grandmother herself, her old person odors and her tearful petitions? Earlier in the narrative Michelle mentions, “She disappeared behind the heavy leather outer curtain and the dusty velvet inner,” the word leather reminds one of an old wrinkled face and the dusty velvet of furniture in an old lady's sitting room parlor. Their age aside these two people are far more alike than they are different. For as alienated as Michelle feels from her brothers, her Mexican heritage and in particular her grandmother, her grandmother feels equally alienated from her grandchildren. The grandmother feels that her grandchildren have been "born in that barbaric country with its barbarian ways." Growing up away from her in another country, they are as alien to her as is their American culture. It is highly ironic that the grandmother uses the word "barbarian" to describe America when the word is usually used to describe those who are less cultured or less refined from a Western perspective. Here, one has the ‘other’ sitting in judgment of the dominant culture. The importance of names to minority cultures, which are sometimes lost in the dominant ideology of the adopted county, is apparent in the grandmother’s use of their native names, “Micaela…Alfredito and Enrique.” The grandmother wants to cling to her old world traditions and culture, and as a result finds it hard to relate to her Americanized grandchildren. Back inside the church Michelle approaches her grandmother who makes her kneel and sit quietly. Before too long she is summarily dismissed when her fidgeting distracts her grandmother from her prayers. Once again Michelle has been alienated, this time by another “girl”, a woman with whom she is trying to identify herself with. When she comes out of the church, she finds her brother Junior speaking to tourists in Spanish. He addresses Michelle in English, shocking the tourists taking his picture, who thought the boys were Mexican children. “But you speak English!” the tourists exclaims, to which Junior replies, “we’re Mericans.” The children feel the need to clarify their identity as Americans, so Junior explains to her that they are "Mericans." The term used is an important example of self-identification. It appears at first to be a typographical error of the word "Mexican," but it's not. Cisneros' successfully coins a new phrase, combining the two words, "American" and "Mexican." Literary critic Harryette Mullen writes, “Cisneros’s text registers tensions implicit in a community where the border between the U.S. and Mexico is reproduced within the psyche of the...