Behind Grandma's House By Gary Soto

Every family has either the perfect life or the worst life through someone else’s eyes. Every day, families go through things nobody else can see. Internally, behind the closed doors nobody can see what is actually happening. Even though it may seem tough, they could be the perfect family, but the viewer does not see it that way. Families relationships are the glue of holding everything together, and bonds are created that do not break easily. Throughout these short poems in the Making Literature Matter textbook, the chapter goes deeper into relationships and legacies within families and grandparents- especially culturally. Grandparents are a major focal point within a family because they show love and affection for the grandkids and try to

In a recent study, “More specifically, children in the clinical sample perceive less warmth, more aggression, more neglect, and more undifferentiated rejection from their parents.” (Guzel 8). Young children are neglected more and more by families and they just assume kids can do anything they want. In the poem, lines 16-20 it quotes, “I said “Shit”, “Fuck you”, and “No way/ Daddy-O” to an imaginary priest/ Until grandma came into the alley,/ her apron flapping in a breeze,/ her hair mussed, and said, “Let me help you,”/ And punched me between the eyes.” There should not be any boy at this young of an age saying all those things, but the saying is, “you say what you hear”; he obviously heard this from a little birdie in the house. His family does not have time for him and does not want to really pay attention to him. He was always looking to gather someone’s attention and finally got the grandmother at the end of this short story. Even though the attention he got was negative, he gained what he wanted, but slowly regretted it. Grandparents are so influential whether it is good or

In the 21st century, it is very common to see an interracial family but in a recent study that David Brusma did was, “Mixed-race persons have always been a “concern” in American society because of the challenge they pose to the racial order.” Here this study is examining the struggle within society terms, but in the poem Heritage by Linda Hogan, there is conflict within the family especially with the grandmother. The grandmother is 100% Indian while the granddaughter is a mix between Caucasian and Indian. In society we all have our traditions and hardships that come with it, but the grandmother is basically ashamed of the granddaughter because she’s partially Caucasian and the traditions are not the same. This poem relates to the other two because it shows less positivity from the grandparents and here the grandma is almost shunning the young girl out. In using such a dismal but somewhat wistful tone throughout the poem, the speaker shows that, while within every family comes some type of issue, her family’s tensions concerned color and heritage. The grandmother is disgusted with the white heritage the girl was born into since she was not full American Indian; even being of partial Indian blood was not enough for her. As Hogan writes in the sixth stanza, “That tobacco is the dark night that covers me” (39). Even though the grandmother is full blooded Indian, she is providing