How we cite our quotes: (Chapter.Paragraph)
Quote #1
"Am I glad you can help me. Father is too. He's having a s***-fit because today is the last day to turn over documents to another law firm and I have to be at an orientation meeting for the new squash players." (15.9)
If Wendell's not the World Champion of Spoiled, he was definitely a runner-up in the competition.
Quote #2
Robert Steely lives in a neighborhood where the houses are closer together than where I live. (20.23)
Holmes's firing Steely for questioning him seems all the more heartless when we see, through Marcelo's eyes, that he's not as well off as the other attorneys in the firm. Apparently, Steely and his family are Vidromek casualties, too.
Quote #3
Paterson is expensive. I have heard kids say that they are attending the school on a scholarship because their parents cannot afford to send them otherwise. Without the money Arturo earns from Vidromek, we may not be able to afford Paterson. (21.37)
Or Yale for Yolanda, or a house with a huge yard. Yet Marcelo still decides to do the right thing, because Ixtel's suffering is greater.
Quote #4
As we get closer, we see an assortment of plastic animals on the front lawn: a family of deer, two white swans (now grayish), a mother duck with six ducklings behind her (one tipped over), two rabbits kissing each other, a brown fox, a groundhog up on his hind legs, a flamingo that could have been pink at one time but is now a whitish color. (22.44)
The only thing that makes a yard scream "lower class" more blatantly than lawn ornaments is a car on cinder blocks. Still, we think pink flamingoes are pretty awesome.
Quote #5
"Amos grows hay down there for the twelve or so cows he keeps. He used to have eighty acres, but he sold fifty after Mother died to pay the doctor's bills. The hill and the eighty acres, when worked right, took care of a family of four. " (22.115)
Living off the land through backbreaking labor is an entirely new concept to Marcelo, and it probably seems far more honest than being a lawyer at this point. Unless you're Jerry Garcia of course.
Quote #6
The one I believe to be Cody is carrying a box of Bud Light. The one that I believe to be Jonah has two bags of potato chips in his hands. (23.4)
Marcelo notices that Jasmine's neighbors are different from his without passing judgment, which allows Stork to show us class differences in a matter-of-fact way.
Quote #7
"Cody, go get your fiddle while she's peeing," Samuel Shackleton says. (23.41)
Can you even imagine what Marcelo must be thinking at this point? Stork doesn't tell us; he just shows us the scene through Marcelo's eyes and lets us use our imaginations.
Quote #8
I realize that I have never seen a can of Spam. (23.55)
We're willing to bet Marcelo's never seen white bread, Velveeta cheese, or Marshmallow Fluff either, but unlike Spam, two out of three of those things are delicious. (We'll let you decide which two.)
Quote #9
"I be back. Here, I turn on the fan for you." She goes over to a tall, rusty fan in the corner and clicks a button. She waits until she hears the blades begin to rattle and then she leaves the room. Her plastic sandals make a smacking sound as she walks. (29.13)
Meeting Sister Juana is especially profound for Mexican-American Marcelo, though Stork never comes right out and tells us that. He just shows us, through Marcelo's eyes, the details of the lives of native Spanish speakers who haven't had the Sandovals' privilege.
Quote #10
"This house once was from rich family. When last daughter die, she leave it to us. Is a big house. Now some nights we have forty girls. In rich family there only four live here. Father, mother, and two daughters. And maybe five servants." She laughs. "Imagine." (29.33)
Marcelo's house would probably look like a mansion to Sister Juana too.