The Prince of Los Cocuyos: A Miami Childhood

Blanco enjoys helping his teacher with the bulletin board and feels special when she asks for his opinions. After he helps with the Easter bulletin board, she asks the class to thank him; Blanco is proud until he overhears boys teasing him and calling him “Ricarda” (70).

Blanco is envious of his classmates who have rug-making kits and saves his snack money to buy one. In the craft store, he walks through each aisle savoring the sight of the craft materials. Though he “had a crush on Mickey and Minnie, as bad as the crush they had on each other” (72), he declines to buy the Mickey and Minnie kit, instead choosing one with a tiger so that Abuela would be more likely to approve.

Abuela discovers the kit and his horrified. She tells him “[i]t’s better to be it and not look like it, than to look like it even if you are not it” (72).; Blanco writes that Abuela frequently “humiliated” (72) him for his interests. Papá and Abuela force him to exchange it for a leather wallet kit, for “[l]eather is for hombres” (73).

One day, Abuela announces that she is paying for Blanco’s parents to take the kids to Disney World.