SITE TOOLS
|
|
Down
These Mean Streets - Personal Reflections
By Wilfredo Benitez
Down These Mean Streets is Piri Thomas’ timeless and thought-provoking
autobiography about coming of age as a black Puerto-Rican man in 1930’s Harlem.
Thomas wrestles with issues of drugs, race and his place in society. It’s a
fascinating, confusing, predictable, emotionally draining, yet riveting book--a must read
for all the young “knuckleheads” who think they know it all or are trying to
find themselves.
"[T]his book touches upon other social ills that still plague society and young
people."
|
|
I first read Thomas’ story over twenty years ago as a sophomore in a predominantly
white Vermont private school. I read Down These Mean Streets faster than anyone in
my English class, amazed at how well I identified with the author. Here was another
dark-skinned Puerto-Rican with experiences incredibly similar to my own - at least in
terms of race and finding one’s place in society. Sharing those experiences with
Thomas was comforting and encouraging at 15. Rereading his story as an adult was equally
comforting. |
|
| The scholarship I received to attend this school
proved to be the opportunity of a lifetime. At the time, I resented leaving my beloved
Harlem, family and friends to travel far away for a better than average education. My
culture shock upon attending that school was similar to the Thomas family’s reaction
after moving from Harlem to Long Island. While the benefits of graduating from that school
were many, attending the school was painful and gave me a full serving of reality. Like
Thomas, I began questioning myself to make sense of who I was in an environment that was
very different from my own. Going to school with rich white kids was unbearable at times.
Explaining to my schoolmates that I really was Puerto Rican despite my rich dark skin
color, was a daily and frustrating task. I recall reciting certain passages from the book
to some of them to dispute their notions of ethnicity and skin color. To them, Puerto
Ricans only looked a certain way. These conversations paralleled exchanges between Thomas
and his family. |
|
|
|
In the chapter Brothers Under the Skin, Thomas
confronts his white looking brother on the issue of race and it turns into a fistfight.
Thomas explains to his brother and family he was “going down south” to find
himself because he felt displaced in his own family. Everyone in his family looked like
and identified with whites. He was dark and as his mother often described him, the
“negrito” of the family. In that chapter, Thomas also asks his father
"What’s so wrong with not being white? What’s so wrong with being tregeño
[dark skinned]?" MORE>> |
|
|
|
RLP Ventures, LLC and/or its
suppliers. All rights reserved.