Politics of Class and Snakes

        Out of the last two days (Wednesday & Thursday) that I have finished reading I want to go back to the very beginning of Wednesday and talk about Rafaela's experience in her chapter 18:Daylight- The Cornfield. I highlighted many things I wanted to mention or talk about but this particular inner thought moment of Rafaela I thought stuck out most to me. She left Bobby because she was tired of working hard for everyone as a housekeeper and cleaner "without benefits" (which she never really specifies what those benefits might be). She goes on to talk about how Bobby would tv's and electronic, the newest and best, for her and their son Sol. They had health insurance and a good home. She was tired of being on the bottom and working for others, but when she is in the cornfield with Dona Maria (before she heard Hernado the baby parts harvester in the kitchen) she has a moment of realization I would say and I feel like it makes a statement about the class system and the working class in particular. I think Rafaela, for a moment, discovers that if you are proud of what you do and work hard at does it really matter?  I know she does not necesarrily want to clean house, but Bobby does. He likes to do all the jobs he does and he works hard so she should respect that and get used to it. Here is the passage to which I am referring,

          "What will you do with so much corn?"

   "Eat it, of course. As much as you want. The rest, Lupe will take to market for cash." Rafaela knew Lupe did everything on Dona Maria's place. Lupe cleaned, cooked, gardened, planted, and harvested. She fed the chickens, collected eggs, fattened the pigs, and slaughtered them when the time came. Rafaela thought about her argument with Bobby, about how she and Bobby did all the work without benefits, about exploitation. Now she had crossed the border and forgotten her anger. Lupe did all the work. Someone was always at the bottom. As long as she was not, did it matter?" 117

        Yamashita is smart by having Rafaela come to this conclusion that is both a little selfish and a little eye opening. Yamashita is saying that the problem with class exploitation is a national problem, global problem, not just the Bobby's and Rafaela's in L.A. And she leaves it at that for the chapter. There is no conclusion to the thought. She goes right into baby harvester. I like that we are left to ponder, "Does it matter?".

        On a different note in the same chapter I found something very poetic about the snake trying to meander the bulging brick wall that was beginning to take on a life of its own outside of Gabriel's place. The one that Rodriguez was building. "Rodriguez did not move to kill the snake as he might have because, she thought, the snake's path seemed oddly straight. If only the snake could define the nature of a straight line..." 115. Again we are left to ponder ourselves, what is the nature of a straight line?