Down These Mean Street

Aniceto Mata Jr.

Dr. Cheu

WRA 125 (Mon. & Wed: 12:40pm-2:30pm)

Essay 3

21 November 2005

Neither

In the book, Down These Mean Street, it is about a guy named Piri Thomas who, ever since he was a young boy has always been confused of whether he was Puerto Rican or Black guy. Throughout his whole life he is confused about his ethnicity that is until he gets into some trouble with the law. While attempting armed robbery, every thing gets out of control, he ends up shooting a cop, and he then has to spent six to fifteen years of his life behind bars. Being behind bars causes him to think about how he used to live, always acting as a tough guy and how valuable his life really is. While in jail he is also under the influence of the Muslim religion, which leads him to the climax understanding of what he considers himself to be. Piri's incarceration leads him to the conclusion that he is neither Puerto Rican nor a Black guy.

Before Piri went to jail he had always acted as a tough guy because people always discriminate him as a black guy instead of a Puerto Rican. Every since he was growing up he had a mind set that, in order for him to get respect from other people he couldn't show any weakness and because of this he had so much anger bestowed upon him. But when he was behind bars he realized that there was no way that his toughness could get him back where he wanted to be. He had been sentenced to fifteen years in prison and there was nothing he could do about it. Because

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he thought that it was no different, at first while he was in jail he thought that the only way that he would be able to satisfy himself was to let go of his anger in jail. But then he realized that this place that he was in was totally different. "One of the worst feelings I can imagine is to be something or someplace and not be able to accept the fact. So it was with me-I was a con in jail, but nothing in the world could make me accept it. Not the gray clothes, not the blue uniform hacks, not the insipid food, not the new line in my face-nothing"(Thomas 255). There were many times when he just wanted to beat up some cop or an inmate. But the thought of how he probably wouldn't be able to be alive or be able to see the world anymore kept him away from it. "One of them turned an eye on me, and I lowered my eyes because if he had seen the odio there, he would have had to hit me and I was afraid I would have to hit him back, and then he would have to kill me. So I stood quietly and looked at my bare feet and thought about outside" (Thomas 286) As the days pass by, he soon realized that there was no way he could do what he wanted to do and the only way to get out of there was to obey the law. Though he finally realized that the way he lived was wrong, it took some jail time for him to finally realize how valuable his life really was to him.

When he was a young boy Piri was confused that whether he was Puerto Rican or Black. Lots of people would tell him that he was black guy but his family would constantly tell him that he was a Puerto Rican. "You ain't no nigger, Jose said. I ain't? said Piri. No, You're a Puerto Rican" (Thomas 143).This confusion ended up having a big impact on his life. Growing up Pirie entered a youth gang and he eventually dropped out of school. He soon ended up getting addicted to heroine, which took total control of his life. When he finally stopped using heroine he got mixed up with a couple of guys that dealt with armed robbery, which were the main cause of his fifteen years in prison. It wasn't until he got arrested that he realized that the life he was

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living wasn't all that great and the idea of changing how he used to be was yet to come. When he first entered prison he thought it would just be a piece of cake, but he was wrong:

I tried to make believe that the days were shorter instead of longer, that the moon rose within half an hour of the sun. I hated the sight of a calendar. I tried not to count the days and weeks and months and years-and I found myself counting seconds and minutes. I counted the bolts and windows, the green-splashed bars, the hacks an cons; they added up to a thousand years. The reasoning that my punishment was deserved was absent. As prison blocks off your body, so it suffocates your mind". (Thomas 255)

As time passed by he came to a conclusion that when he got out he wanted to do something with his life and not end up back in the same shoes he was in. One of the things that he saw that would better off his life was education. He then started seeking a way to get some knowledge so that he could better off his education. " Learning made me painfully aware of life and me. I began to dig what I had been? How I become that way? What could I be? How did we scuffle? I copped the dictionary to look up the words I didn't know, and then I had to look up the words explaining the original words. But if I had to bop against the big words, I decided-well, I had heart. (Thomas 298) After realizing how he used have lived compared to how he hoped to of lived, gave him a different perspective in life. While Piri's desire