Esperanza's Father - Post 4

I chose to focus on Esperanza's father.  Check out the Wordle I made from all the things Esperanza says about him - I included any sentence that she mentioned him in up until page 86. 

There are so many characters in this book, so it's sort of difficult to get attached to many of them, because they'll pop up and here and there and not come back into the story again.  But the way Esperanza talks about her dad reminded me a lot of the way I feel about my own dad.  Her feelings for him weren't really clear until the vignette called "Papa Who Wakes up Tired in the Dark," where it clearly shows that she loves him and that they are at least growing closer, if not close already - "I have never seen my Papa cry and don't know what to do" - he feels comfortable showing emotions in front of her about his father dying - and later, she says, "And I think if  my own Papa died what would I do.  I hold my Papa in my arms.  I hold him and hold him."  She realizes how much he means to her and this was a powerful moment.  I also got a sense that Esperanza really appreciated her dad in this passage, when she talks about all of the things he sacrifices to work a job - one with gardens as she later describes (never told what he does) - and provide for his family: "He wakes up tired and in the dark [and is] gone before we wake."  Her mom is mentioned a great deal more in the story, which makes me think that her father is often off working, but when he does have free time - like Sundays - "Papa's day off" (p 86) - he spends them with his family.

My dad and I have a really close bond and I love and appreciate him a great deal.  He works hard - as a foreign accounts manager at Citigroup - at he job he doesn't love, but he gets up every morning to do his work and provide for his family.  Even though I'm sure he's tired, he has always made our time together special - with bike rides at Delaware Park, letting me "do his hair" as a young girl, and lots of weekend trips to see things in the city.  Now that I'm older, we still walk at Delaware Park on the weekends in the summer, and we walk the dogs together every night (unless I'm in class).  He's still my greatest source of advice, always talking me through different things, and he confides a lot in me, just like Esperanza's Papa does in the vignette about him.

My wordle definitely paints her father as a hard working man - with phrases such as "tired" and "wakes" coming up larger and "brave" and "works" coming up smaller.  I love the "Hamandeggs" phrase and how that pops up as a big word, too - this section on learning to speak English (about a neighbor's wife) was comical, but also shows her father as a bit of a risk-taker and trailblazer.  He was willing to struggle through not being able to communicate until he learned the language so that he could live in Chicago and make a better life for his family - again pulling it all back to his willingness to sacrifice for his family.  "Hamandeggs" was the only phrase he knew when he first moved here, so he ate hamandeggs for breakfast, lunch, and dinner.  The fact that he could laugh about this with Esperanza also reveals a comical side to him as well.  I like how large the name turned up, because until I did this wordle, I did not focus in on her father, and could not have told you what she called him.  Other tiny words that pop up - lottery, snoring,  Sundays - also remind us of little pieces of his character that we might have overlooked otherwise.  I love that Esperanza pointed out that he snores.  For her, this was comforting, but whenever I go somewhere and stay overnight with my mother, I have to bring earplugs - not comforting at all!