Hoyt Street by Mary Helen

Hoyt Street by Mary Helen Ponce: An Analysis

Children are not born with an awareness of racism and poverty. As they grow older, life provides children with an education in these matters

Criticism

Mary Helen Ponce's memoir of her childhood on Hoyt Street in Southern California during the 1940s chronicles the author's life from the ages of 8-13. It suggests that although Ponce's young life was hard, it was not without joy. As a very young girl Mart Helen was not aware of the fact that she was poor for she had no consciousness of what life was life outside of her barrio, an area only the 'wealthy' families did not live in shacks and had more than one pair of shoes per child. But when the author entered school and traveled outside of their Hispanic community, her naivete disappeared and she became aware that the world was torn between Hispanic and Anglo perspectives.

Identify key points throughout the reading and write them down.

The book is structured in three parts, into innocence, reason, and knowledge. The age of innocence is when the young Mary is convinced that her brother, Kid Ponce, will become a great boxer, only to see him knocked out in the first round. Reason comes upon entering school, when Mary is exposed to Anglo teachers, nuns whose hidden skulls fascinate her (do they really have hair). Reason is an age when Mary Helen still dreams of dressing in white, like the Virgin Mary. Knowledge comes as Mary Helen becomes aware of the fact that she is unwelcome in certain places, like the local movie theater, because of her race.

Questions about the reading

1. Catholicism plays an important role in the novel. Are people such as the women called "The Three Trinidads" who compete as to who can offer the most prayers to God and Father Muller who hates dancing but loves the beach hypocrites? Does their form of rationalization reflect badly upon the faith? (Compare these images with the author's mother at her young brother's funeral).

2. The story is told through the eyes of a child, but the author is much older. How does Ponce use irony to add humor and also pathos to her tale?