"Near the windows of La Virgen de Toledo Federation, next to the shrine for the Madonna, there is a Jimi Hendrix video game machine."

This is the modern ironic picture of the mexican tight rope. They are conflicted on whether to join modern american culture or stay with their culture. Their religious standards and ethics are represented by the shrine, while the Jimi Hendrix video game is representative of the change.

"A martial art technique that numbs your opponent's sense of color awareness.
-Hispa-ratee!"

This whole poem pokes fun at stereotypes, how it is perceived mexicans do everything differently, but when you look closer at the answer it's the same thing with 'Hispa' in the beginnning.

"The machine waits for you too, the tubing, the ancestral mezzo mump transformer interpreter translator of your self in birth form."
This quote is how people lose their personality in society, and just become part of the machine. The machine of capitalism of manufacturing, producing, selling, and buying. It calls everyone, and silently directs them to become part of the machine.

"We run parallel lives, someone says.
Parallels of exile
Parallels of desire boiling underwater."

This quote is about how people live their lives without showing their feelings with others or without interacting with others. People live in solitude, deeply wanting to feel but too involved with completeing their lives working towards success priorities are now in success in stead of interaction and people live in exile.

106-130 Chile Verde

"For years, in that wild shadow, she smoked and kissed a stray that crossed our window"
After he husband has died she has lost everything stable, and for the years that she lived in the memory of him she was free through the darkness she kissed a stray and smoked. She did the unheard of after her husband died now she was free in the, "sweet darkness."

"sometimes from a small envelope
she pulls out his broken bones," pg, 142

This is representing how his death comes back to haunt her. Through everday activites years later she still can't let go.

106-130 Chile Verde

"For years, in that wild shadow, she smoked and kissed a stray that crossed our window"
After he husband has died she has lost everything stable, and for the years that she lived in the memory of him she was free through the darkness she kissed a stray and smoked. She did the unheard of after her husband died now she was free in the, "sweet darkness."

"sometimes from a small envelope
she pulls out his broken bones," pg, 142

This is representing how his death comes back to haunt her. Through everday activites years later she still can't let go.

Chile verde smuggler #3

"A $twenty at the foot of the Budddha." pg. 73

This is ironic because money is so against the core of buddhist beliefs. And that someone would find that putting a twenty dollar bill as respect is ridiculous. There are many things that can be interpreted, that either society is so ignorant and decides to show respect when they know nothing of the beliefs. Or that they are so caught up in money, they question how could a twenty not be respectful?

"I noticed she gazed over the sink into the yard, I didnt know if she was watching for Tex, the mixed dog, to eat the laundery or if she was going higher up, over hte houses, the moving sky, torn clouds going west away from all the chavitos with peanut butter on their faces, far from the clap of dust, trastes, pink erasers, a kitchen table, beaten with hours, with pencils."pg.66

This quote symbolizes what he sees as he watches a woman, she could be just looking for the dog, or could be looking at more. The one moment she gets away from the daily slum of her life by looking out, daydreaming, enjoying the far away from the daily life of her kitchen. Away from somethign she cannot escape.

chile verde smuggler #2

"When he can identify footsteps by gender.
When the words are actually connected to him."

These two lines are associated with when a man becomes a woman. Most of the lines seem to show that as a man matures and becomes more mature he becomes closer to a woman. Both in work and home a man notices things like whether the footsteps are a man or a woman, and speaks his actual feeelings. Women tend to notice things more and speak their feelings and the poem is about how men mature to be more like a woman.

"Years later, Guajardo got shot in the face. So did Hall."

The poem is about his elementary school kids, their faces, and personalities, the bullies and the bullied. But in the end it has a harsh result. This marks the blunt end to an average elementary school. The tough bullies reach their early death.

Chile Verde Smuggler

"Your papi's brand new gillette. It's not brand new, Mama. 'S OK, the hot water and salt will burn the germs. You ready, Juan?"

I find this quote particularly moving because it shows his strength and his rough childhood in the first few lines of the book without even having to tell his struggle. His mom is trying to make the situation better by saying it's brand new, when it is not, also showing they are probobly not very economically stable. And her cutting off his finger with nothing but a razor blade and a bucket of water, shows his rough childhood. Without saying so his strength shines through the lines of a simple story that does not even explain the pain of cutting off his finger, you just know.

"I see you looking at yourself putting letters on paper.' You said. All my illusions of being a poet shrank."

The one thing to avoid as a poet is the act of writing. everything is supposed to come from the heart, but when you watch yourself write, its coming from the brain. Everything is supposed to be true and sincere, but if your not completely caught up in the words instead of the action you are not a true poet as he feels in that moment.