“The Cariboo Café” was a fun read. The post modern style Helena Maria Viramontes used made her story seem like a puzzle. In order to make sense of it all I had to read it, go back two pages and read it again, start from the beginning and make sure my theory of what is going on is correct, then I “actively” read it one last time. I liked when our guest lecturer mentioned that every time you reread this story you find a new piece of information that you overlooked before. For example, in class she read the line “Short Order don’t look nothing like his mom.” I had an ‘aha!’ moment because I wouldn’t have been able to notice that detail the first time I read it, but now having known that the boy had been kidnapped, it makes sense now that he would look nothing like the woman who thinks she’s his mother. I like that in a story, it makes me look forward to going back one day and rereading it just to be confused again and then pick up new things in the process.

I also liked this story because the content was a little familiar to me. Well, not the part about the drug lords and sketchy burger joints, but the cultural aspect of it. The little details in her stories just reminded me of home. Like the mention of the folk story of La Llorona that was told to me as a child and Sonya’s plan on going to Mrs. Avila’s house for fresh tortillas right off the comal literally made my mouth water. And although I was born in Texas, my father immigrated here when he was 7 years old from Mexico. He, like Viramontes, grew up with 9 brothers and sisters and experienced some sort of discrimination whilst growing up in a new English-speaking country.