Author: Dustin Wheeler

A few of the things that you can connect from the memoir to real life is the idea of poverty and people being hungry, and storytelling.
The idea of poverty can relate to this because on page ten Kingston says, “Poverty hurt, and that was their first reason for leaving”. With this line Kingston’s talking about the men came to the United States looking for a better life and their main reason for coming over was because of the poverty. In a 2011 study by Steven Friedman of the Huffington post he lists the top five countries that are in poverty are Turkey, the United States, Chile, Israel, and number one is Mexico. Even though the United States is one of the wealthiest countries it’s surprising to that the United States as high as it is in this list. The second way poverty can relate to this is when Kingston says, “But the men-hungry, greedy, tired of planting in dry soil- had been forced to leave the village in order to send food-money home”. Even though the men are over in the United States working they’re still sending the money back home so that the rest of their family can have the money.
Using the same quote as listed above “But the men-hungry, greedy, tired of planting in dry soil-had been forced to leave the village in order to send food-money home”, we can see that some families are having a hard time putting food on the table so that they can eat. This is also a problem in the United States, and in parts of other countries. Another example of this is when Kingston says, “Always hungry, always needing, she would have to bed food from other ghosts, snatch and steal it from those whose living descendants give them gifts” on page 16. Kingston is talking once again talking about her aunt who is looking for food to feed herself and to possible feed the baby. Another example is on page seven, when Kingston says, “In a commensal, food is precious, the powerful older people made wrongdoers eat alone”. If you are an older person and you have done wrong, you’ll be eating a meal by yourself.
Telling stories is helpful because it can help people understand different things like different people that they are related to or what people used to do for fun when they were younger. An example of this is when Kingston talks about her grandfather on the bottom of page ten and at the top of page eleven, saying that “There are stories that my grandfather was different from other people” and “And one day he brought home a baby girl, wrapped up inside his brown western-style greatcoat. He had traded one of his sons, probably my father, the youngest for her”. This quote goes to show that Kingston is learning about her grandfather through a story she probably would have never heard, if it wasn’t for the person that is telling her the story. Another example is at the bottom of page fifteen is when Kingston has learned about her aunt and her mother tells her to not talk about the aunt and the cousin because the father doesn’t want to hear the name of his sister who he doesn’t believe ever existed. In the sentence that starts out “I have believed that sex was unspeakable and words so strong and fathers so frail that “aunt” would do my father mysterious harm”, to think that even mentioning the word aunt around your father would do him harm is sad to think about.
Questions:
1) What other ways are stories being told throughout the memoir?
2) What are some other ways in which poverty is talked about?

My name is Dustin Wheeler, I’m from a small town called Waverly. I’m the oldest of four children in my family. This is my first semester at Cortland. I’m a sport management major.