Lucho
The title character of the very first story in the collection is conveyed through imagery just four paragraphs in. The description will prove to be vital toward a full understanding of not just this story, but much of what follows afterward:
“He had squishy lips and a small round nose, smooth shiny skin, and greasy dark hair. All the girls checked him out. But Lucho was kind of dirty for a town like ours. He always wore the same thing: faded jeans with holes around the pockets and a white button-down shirt that looked like it only got washed in the sink. He was sort of tall...and skinny the way boys are till they discover beer. He smoked cigarettes and sat around on patches of grass on the school grounds, sort of taking it all in.”
The Bully
“Green” is the story of a reunion as adults between two people who as students at school together were bully and victim. The narrator is the bullied whom an adult Maureen active sought out. The substantive changes made over the years is effectively conveyed in part by imagery:
“Maureen was wearing a green sweater that day at the diner and for that reason you will always remember her in green. Her once thick hair was a clump of threads tied by red elastic. She wore makeup but on her leathery face it looked clown-ish and you remember feeling embarrassed to be seen with her. She was talking about when you were kids as though you were best friends.”
Just a Girl or Just Smarter?
The narrator of “Cielito Lindo” is female. She is recalling a ride with a male companion. The circumstance veer toward stereotype except that the stereotype has played out in realty too many times to count. An observation is made through imagery that raises a question: is this divergence in perspective the result gender or intelligence:
“We’re in his flashy car. A total midlife-crisis car. He’s forty, rich, and single, so he drives a bullet-colored Ferrari. When we stop at red lights, people in the cars next to us always check us out. It’s such a stupid car. It makes me think of people starving in third-world countries. I feel guilty riding in this car, and it has nothing to do with the fact that I don’t love him.”
Carla
Imagery is predominantly used by the author for the purpose of character delineation. This is only natural, of course, since the book is a collection of short stories which means a wealth of new characters every few pages down the line. A particularly vivid illustration is that of a girl name Carla in the story “Madre Patria.”
"Carla was eighteen, beautiful, with golden skin and canela hair. She had tiny green eyes, a flattened nose, and a pale coin-size smile that looked so fragile it might fall off her face. She was slight of build and always wore a denim jacket that her mother said made her look like a campesina. If you put her in a lineup, compared her to other girls the way people like to do, you might not think her so pretty, but I thought Carla was the most spectacular girl I’d ever seen.”
