Living Up The Street

During the summers of Soto’s childhood, if he and his siblings aren’t at the park, they’re watching TV. Since their mother works long hours at the factory, leaving them home alone during the summer months, the TV becomes a teacher for Soto. It’s while watching TV that Soto develops his ideas about the world beyond his Fresno neighborhood and his own family. This idea can be seen when Soto watches a television show about a Polynesian tribe eating turtle soup, and that night he asks his mother if they can try turtle soup sometime, too. As they’re eating their meal of beans and tortillas, his mother laughs at Soto’s idea and says that he’s a “crazy Mexican” (29) and people don’t eat turtles. Here, the TV leads Soto to his first discrepancy between what he sees on a show and what he lives. The TV shows him that there’s a big wide world in which people eat turtles, but not he and his family. More confusing for Soto is that his mother makes it a cultural issue, saying that the idea of eating turtle calls into question the essence of his “Mexican” roots, since, as she implies, Mexicans don’t eat turtle.