Parrot in the Oven; Pages: 1-48

Summary: What a start to the new term! I have just finished reading through the first three chapters in Parrot in the Oven, and boy was it amazing. At first there was humor as Manny, the narrator, explained his brother’s failure to holding on to a job. Manny lives by the projects in his hometown with his mother, father, his older brother, Bernardo (Nardo), his older sister, Magda, and Pedi, his younger sister. The father doesn’t have a job, just like Nardo, and he spends his time drinking at a bar where he gets drunk and curses with his friends. Manny mentioned how he came from a blood-line of people who worked hard, like his grandfather, Ignacio. This was evident from the very beginning. Manny was determined to buy a new baseball mitt, so he decided to work on the fields picking chili to earn the money he needed. Nardo went as well after Manny convinced him that he’ll be able to buy new weights. At the fields with them were many “wetbacks”, as Nardo would say. Though he was Hispanic/Latino himself, he still denigrated the Mexicans who worked beside him. Manny’s family was all screwed up, though he did not mention it. He only described the problems that most of his family had, like his father’s drinking issue. The mother was the figure who seemed to hold the family together, and she only wanted the best for Manny. That’s why she wanted to transfer Manny from his previous school, to a much better school across town, where the middle class and some upper class folks resided.

Quotation: “As he reached the door, he swung back around and pointed right at he president’s picture on the twenty-dollar bill, said, ‘Don’t you think I know people like this?’” (Martinez 48).

Reaction: In the quote, Manny was describing his father’s actions right after Manny’s teacher drove off. It was his teacher who gave him the twenty dollar bill right before he drove Manny home. It’s evident in the quote that Manny’s father did not take politely the generosity of Mr. Hate, Manny’s teacher. It wasn’t mentioned in the quote, but the father refused to shake Mr. Hate’s hand. Manny mentioned how his father did not like folks like him: people who wore white shirts, and a black tie. The quotation shows the struggle that Manny has to deal with at home, and it’s not like he’s visiting Utopia every time he goes home. His family is rather broken apart slightly because of the struggles that their going through: his father not having work, his father’s drinking problem, the lack on money, and the lack of communication between family members. The story is told in a first person point of view, and Manny is the protagonist. The antagonists are the Garcia brothers: Bobby (the oldest), Stinky, and Little Tommy. The time of year in the first chapters is summer time, and boy was it hot near Sierra, California! Manny mentioned that one day the temperature had reached 110, and how that summer could have been the worst in the many years that his family lived in the valley desert.

*Additional quotation: “He [Dad] believed people were like money…You could be a thousand-dollar person or a hundred dollar person-even a ten-, five-, or one-dollar person. Below hat, everybody was just nickels and dimes. To my dad, we were pennies” (Martines 25-26).
This quote shows the beliefs of Manny’s father, and its quite obvious the man he grew up to be: classifying people in these groups, and believing that he was better than his wife and children.