Emako Blue

Escaping the cycle of poverty and violence is an important goal for Emako and Eddie in the text. Both characters feel trapped, alongside their families, in the cycle of violence caused by gang activity within their families. Each has a plan of escaping this cycle. Emako plans to pursue a music career after graduating high school, and Eddie intends to graduate high school a year early in order to attend college out of state and as far away from the community as possible. The text invites readers to question whether it is possible to break the cycle of poverty and violence, and at what cost.

Emako believes that by being proactive and taking initiative, she can escape the cycle of poverty and violence she has been born into. Unlike her brother, Dante, a gang member that Emako views as “in too deep” (45), Emako transfers away from the high school in her neighborhood to attend a better school that is free from “too much trouble in the classrooms and everywhere else” (21). She seeks to use her musical talent as a way to pursue a career, which would help to lift herself and her family out of the cycle of poverty: “I’ll be livin’ it up. I’ll move my mama away from all this madness and buy her a house with a pool in Malibu” (22). Emako very nearly achieves this goal. At her yearly winter concert, a record executive approaches her family and offers her a record deal. Emako agrees to her mother’s stipulation that she wait until after she graduates in order to pursue her career, but Emako’s future is all but sealed by this encounter.

Emako’s future and dream of escape from the cycle of poverty and violence comes to an end as a direct result of this cycle. When Emako’s brother, Dante, leaves detention, a rival gang member murders Emako (aiming for Dante) in their front yard. Dante’s inability to escape the cycle of violence he has gotten himself into has irreparable consequences for his family.

Eddie, living a parallel life to Emako, also looks to escape the cycle of poverty and violence. Upon his acceptance to college in Arizona, Eddie receives his escape route. After Emako’s death, however, Eddie realizes that escaping comes at a high cost and does not entirely fix his problems:

I wondered if I would make it. If they got Emako, then maybe they would get me too. They could keep my brother, Tomas, incarcerated forever as far as I was concerned. I didn’t want him to bring the angel of death to our door. I knew now that innocence didn’t mean anything (120-121).

Eddie worries about what will happen to his family after he leaves for college and is no longer there to keep an eye on things. After seeing what happened to Emako, Eddie understands that one’s ability to escape the cycle of poverty and violence is largely out of one’s control. He struggles with the question of whether escaping is really possible at all, even if he does physically leave Los Angeles, because he will still worry about his loved ones back at home.

Both Eddie and Emako strive to escape this cycle, but both understand how difficult a task this is. At the conclusion of the text, whether it is truly possible to escape the cycle of poverty and violence goes unanswered. Emako, murdered in a drive-by shooting, does not escape and becomes another casualty of the cycle itself. Eddie secures his future at college, but he worries that while he may be able to physically leave, he may remain mentally trapped regardless because of those he leaves behind. The novel concludes that the ability to escape the cycle of poverty and violence is subject to the whims of fate. Emako had the opportunity ahead of her to escape poverty and violence, and yet her death is a direct result of this cycle. Gang culture perpetuates this cycle and exacerbates it–making life not only more difficult and dangerous for gang members, but each member of the community in which gangs are present.