Discussion Questions
How does the author's mother come up with enough money to send to her parents?
Diaz's mother was jobless. However, she was able to gather and save few dollars from whatever came on her way. Regardless of how little the family earned, she could save, scrimp, and stash to make sure she had enough dollars to send to her parents. According to Diaz, she deducted some dollars from the cash that her husband gave her for family's daily expenses. Consequently, the family could hardly get soda, juice, snacks, or even labeled clothes. The family had to live broke and tight so that she can save some money for her parents in Santo Domingo.
How would you describe the parent-children relationship in Diaz's family?
According to my opinion, the parent-children relationship in the Diaz nuclear family the relationship of neglect. In this way, the parents especially the mother are focusing on something else rather than the children. Diaz's mother is obsessed on sending some hundred dollars to her parents more than giving her children a desirable life. Diaz illustrates that the family is not earning substantial money since his mother is jobless and the father does not have a constant forklift job. The mother was so strict on the money to send to her parents that kids "knew that to touch it would have meant a violence approach death" (Diaz 65). The mother goes to the extent of cursing her husband and children when the money got lost. However, it can be seen that the parent-children relationship when parents are old is supportive. For instance, Diaz mother is supportive to her parents even if the money she has is not enough for her family expenses.
In your opinion, what elements in the story appear to be typical in immigrant families?
One element that makes Diaz's family appear like a typical immigrant is the father's problem of securing work. Most of the immigrants are happy to work on any job available but the problem of securing a job or maintain one job for a substantial period is exceedingly difficult. Diaz's father is willing to take whatever job available but maintaining one job is difficult. Diaz explains, "My father was always losing his forklift job, so it wasn't like she [mother] had a steady flow ever" (Diaz 65). Another element is that Diaz's mother was jobless, and she is a housewife. Because of the frustration of securing job, most of the immigrants' wives takes the roles of housewives and the husbands become the bread winners.
Migrants are also commonly associated with the problem of securing good housing and trusted friends. This element is exhibited in the Diaz's family as he explains that their apartment was not huge, and hence, kids were able to know where their parents were hiding valuable items such as money. In addition, Diaz was experiencing a challenge of having good friends; the friend he had broken into their house and stole his mother's money and his books.
How does Diaz find out about the stolen money? Do you think he did the right thing in retrieving the money? If not, what could he have done instead?
Diaz suspects the two people he was hanging with and referred to as his friends had broken their house when they were away. Although they were sympathetic with the situation, he suspects them by seeing how they looked at each other when talking about the event. He planned how he can break into one of his "friends" house when his parents were at work and when the friend was away (at swimming). Later, he realizes that his suspicion was right when he found his books and his mother's money underneath the mattress.
Although breaking into someone else's house is illegal, I think what Diaz did was right. This is because he knew that following the right procedure (reporting to the police) would not help. He had no solid evidence that his friends stole the money.
How does Diaz's mother react when he returns the money? Why do you think she does not give her son some sort of reward? What do the concluding lines of the story imply?
When Diaz returns money to his mother, his mother does not look surprised. She is not even happy that she has her money back. "She just looked at the money and then at me and went back to her bedroom and put it back in its place" (Diaz 67). I think Diaz's mother fails to give any reward to him because she has been suspecting that Diaz knows where the money was. She knew that her children had given their friends an avenue to steal the money.
The last line of the story suggests that the 200 and other dollars were the money that Diaz's mother send to the grandparents as a way of negotiating the distance. The grandparents were staying around fifteen hundred miles and the only way to bring them closer is to send the money.
Identify some of the comic moments in the story. What exactly makes those moments amusing?
One of the comic moment in the story is when Diaz says that he could not even look at the place where his mother kept the money. It is funny because it could only take Diaz a second to take the change from the purse of his mother. Another instance is when Diaz explains that his parents' room appeared "like it had been tornado tossed" after the theft. When the family is mourning for the loss of some belongings, Diaz is comparing the items knocked over to the tossing of a tornado.
Frances Chung
Why does the author write in two languages in this poem?
What does the author hope to convey about places some people refer to as slums?
According to the author, places where some people refer to as slums are others' home. To some people, Chinatown is a place with substandard squalor and housing. The use of "some" is incomplete description indicating that Chinatown description depends on the individual's relationship to it (Chung 72).
Elaborate on the two Chinatown moods the author feels in the poem
Works Cited
Chung, Frances. "Yo Vivo En El Barrio Chino." Crazy Melon and Chinese Apple (n.d.): 72. Web.
Diaz, Junot. "The Money." Chapter 2: Immigrants and American Dream (n.d.): 65-67..
