Angelica's A-POP Blog

1. The High-Heeled Shoes, A Memoir
   1. P. 3
      1. She told her boss and he called the…asked, ‘Are you the girl that was raped?”
         1. It’s really sad that a man had to call to defend her, rather than the police taking her words as valid.
   2. P. 3
      1. My presumption had been rash. It…gestures, being enjoined to liner awhile.
         1. I remember seeing men like these around my neighborhood. None of them were ever naked, but some of them showed enough in enough different outfits that they didn’t leave much to the imagination.
2. Seventeen Syllables
   1. P. 11
      1. …and it was while Rosie was…slippery crescent down with a swig of tea) …
         1. My sister used to do something similar to this. She would take a lime, cut it in half, then put a straw in the middle, and drink out the juice. Over time she upgraded to pouring salt on the lime and drinking it’s remains until it dried up, eat the flesh, and then throw the lime’s skin behind the couch for my mom to find later.
   2. P.12
      1. I wish this old Ford would crash, right…bleeding bodies, one of them hers.
         1. I’ve had bad days when my parents pull me away too quickly, but I’ve never full on imagined us crashing and dying. Having them be punished and having them killed are two different things on multiple levels.
   3. P. 19
      1. “Rosie,” she said urgently, “Promise me…Rosie stared at her mother’s face.
         1. I’ve heard of a lot of these examples in the past few years. Parents telling their children not to get married, not to have sex, not to date anyone, not to live. And while I know that they are doing it out of love, everyone needs to experience some form of heartbreak in order to grow and become a better person.
3. The Legend of Miss Sasagawara
   1. P. 28
      1. “She’s scary. Us kids were in… but when she said that, gee!”
         1. I’ve read so many cases of these before. Of people going off to recovery, but the image they left behind left a bigger scar for the people around them.
   2. P. 29
      1. Church people outside had kindly…he would find on an enclosed slip.
         1. The church I grew up in did something similar for the community around my city. For a couple of years, even my family were the ones receiving gifts because we couldn’t afford them.
   3. P. 31
      1. For what he saw was Miss… sitting there watching him, Joe Yoshinaga.
         1. I had a roommate a year back that was a war veteran. She would wake up in the middle of the night and walk back and forth in her nightgown from her bedroom to the living every night. Sometimes she wasn’t careful and would wear a blood-soaked nightgown from one of her periods, so at night when I would go to use the bathroom or get a drink of water, I would just see a blank face and nightgown walking towards me in the night.
4. Wilshire Bus
   1. P. 34
      1. During this time, Esther was permitted…elegance along the fabulous street.
         1. For the past two years I’ve been in a long-distance relationship and any time I have waited to go up to see him, I’ve had to take the bus. My parents have my truck with them and I don’t have my license but know how to drive. But, since that’s not legal and I don’t want a record started before I actually get the thing, I ride the hour and a half it takes to reach him.
   2. P. 36-37
      1. Heat suddenly rising to her throat…perhaps had urged him to wear the badge.
         1. I feel like maybe some of my peers growing up felt like I had one of these buttons plastered on my face. There weren’t a lot of Latin students in my class regardless of each year, so all the ones that knew each other formed one huge cliché over time to get together. They hated the hell out of me and only knew me as the other girl for years and I never understand why until I noticed that all of them had accents and spoke Spanish, but I didn’t and couldn’t. Like the button in this sense, was my voice.
5. The Brown House
   1. P. 40
      1. To her rapid questions Mr. Hattori…original stake at least.
         1. My aunt and uncle in Oklahoma ended up losing their entire wedding presents in a casino and nearly cost them their house before they stopped.
   2. P. 42
      1. Suddenly Mrs. Wu, who out…weren’t so lucky. One lady fainted.”
         1. I forgot that private gambling rings are illegal in the US and thought that this story took place in Japan for a second there. Outright gambling is super illegal in Japan, so gamblers do it second-hand through pachinko.
   3. P. 42
      1. “A kurombo!” he said. And again, “A kurombo!” He pretended to be victim to a shudder.
         1. Nothing like racism to brighten the mood after running from the police.
6. Yoneko’s Earthquake
   1. P. 46
      1. Her cousins who lived in the city…exclusively for Japanese people.
         1. There was a church by my neighborhood that was a Greek Orthodox church, but for Koreans.
   2. P. 47
      1. Marpo, who was twenty-seven years…ascertained the spelling of it.
         1. I had a friend like this that his last name was changed in the computer, so now all of his legal documents don’t pronounce his name correctly.
7. Morning Rain
   1. P. 57
      1. Even her husband liked his eggs…from bitter experience, had to be tender.
         1. My boyfriend is the same way. You can list every way to cook an egg, but he’ll still take scrambled eggs with salt and a little bit of pepper to taste.
   2. P. 58-59
      1. Then, sharply, she looked at her…shouting at the top of her lungs.
         1. I remember when I was in Japan with my sister Yuka that I spoke with her in English, slowly moving into Japanese, and it wasn’t until we were getting ready to leave each other that I realized not only had I picked up her dialect, but also the way that she spoke, so my English sounded a bit broken, but my Japanese was clear. I had forgotten how to sound like myself.
8. Epithalamium
   1. P. 62
      1. She had secretly endured a miscarriage towards the middle…had barely been able to walk.
         1. I remember watching a movie a few days back that had a teenage girl, about 14, accidentally lose her baby. She never wanted it in the first place, but she couldn’t stop crying while it was happening.
   2. P. 63
      1. “If I don’t love him, who will?”
         1. One of the most common phrases spoken by someone in an abusive relationship. No one should feel forced to be with someone and it’s no one’s responsibility to be with anyone.
   3. P. 63
      1. Then Yuki remembered Madame Marie’s published…as Ambassadors of Christ.
         1. My aunt used to be in one of these cults. That’s how she found my uncle. They were assigned to marry each other, lived in a house where they fed 12 other young boys, mostly teenagers, and one day my uncle escaped from there and brought she with him for their new life.
   4. P. 66
      1. “What are you, anyway, a Lesbian?” someone had finally asked.
         1. I got treated like this a bit while I was in high school because I was single the whole time. Everyone that knew me there had grown up with me, so pretty much they all knew that I never dated a boy. Maybe because I wanted a girl? No. Just no one ever asked me.
9. Las Vegas Charley
   1. P. 72
      1. “Are you Japanese or Chinese?” the…unsteadily on his way.
         1. Most people have known or have had someone in the military before. Killing an innocent won’t bring them back though, no matter how much it hurts.
   2. P. 73
      1. The magic word had come to Charley’s tongue. “Verdad,” he said. “Verdad.”
         1. Speaking Spanish to save your life.
10. Life Among the Oil Fields, A Memoir
    1. P. 86
       1. My mother has given me four pennies…candy for my little brother Johnny at home.
          1. I remember my mother telling me about her mother giving her a nickel to ride the bus back home from school. There was a pickle stand near the bus station, so sometimes my mom would use her nickel to buy a pickle and then walk home rather than taking the bus.
    2. P. 89
       1. But winter there must have been, because…gently broken with chopsticks.
          1. I’ve made dango before with my sisters, but not mochi yet. I hope to make some soon.
11. The Eskimo Connection
    1. P. 96 – 97
       1. She had a relative who had stopped…the thinnest of eggshells.
          1. I have family and friends like these. Ones that say that they can handle criticism, but the moment you tell them something negative, they freak out. Vow to never write, sing, dance, etc. again.
    2. P. 98 – 99
       1. Besides these routine cares, something…undergoing such trauma?
          1. Given that this story comes from the early 80s, my only guess can be that those women were unhappy in their marriages and finally got the chance to take advantage of no-fault divorce.
12. My Father Can Beat Muhammad Ali
    1. P. 105
       1. That evening Henry Kusumoto had two cans of beer with dinner, his favorite chiles rellenos.
          1. The NASTIEST thing to cook inside your house. My mother used to burn those damn things on the stove top and then wonder why my sister and I complained about the heat, smell, and the fire alarms going off.
    2. P.105-106
       1. (Always warming the football…here.” And that had been on the B team.)
          1. I remember being the basketball and having my couch hold me back for a few rounds because I would mess up a lot. I did get to play sometimes, but too many mess ups had me sitting more than playing.
13. Underground Lady
    1. P. 111
       1. She didn’t need much, maybe…burned down had been 350 square feet – too large.
          1. As someone who has been shopping for an apartment lately, 350 sqft is so small!!! I don’t know if she was living in a house, more like a shack, but 350 sqft would barely fit everything needed to put in a kitchen, let alone a bathroom.
    2. P. 112
       1. On the way home I told Ed of…episode had left him feeling uneasy.
          1. As a woman who walks home alone at night a lot, I’ve encountered many homeless people. Some of them just want you to take to them, others want food or a light. I think the worst I’ve had was a man that was whistling at me from the corner of Safeway, trying to get my attention and not leaving me alone until I finally was able to turn a corner and be out of his sight.
14. A Day in Little Tokyo
    1. P. 116
       1.  For some reason she recalled the woman…English to her child (or whomever).
          1. I remember the first time I spoke to my mother while we were in a Mexican store and all the people around us turning to see me speaking English. Then when they realized it was me, it was like they found an alien crawling in their store now.
    2. P. 121
       1. After Mr. Kushida had calmed her down…should have gone to the beach.”
          1. My boyfriend had a similar experience to this earlier this year. Originally I had asked him to come down to see after he got down with work since we were going to see each other the next day anyway and this way he won’t have to drive over in the morning. Instead, he ended up going to a baseball game with his older brother and after the game ended, he found his car broken into with his messenger bag, containing his pay stubs, to be missing. He called me while sitting in his car still and said, “babe, I should have just come over.”
15. Reading and Writing
    1. P. 122
       1. Hallie answered, and I figure it took at…houseful of little kids to referee.
          1. I had a phone call like this at work one day. A woman called and kept me on the phone for 40 minutes while she cried and told me about her depression. I wanted to finish the call and my boss kept coming over to see if the call was over yet, but she kept going and going until I was finally able to let her go.
    2. P.  126
       1. The bill for the upholstery work came to $700 or so, but she decided not to tell Biff about it.
          1. I hate this part of some marriages. Especially couples that have a shared bank account. You need to be able to trust each other and not just spend money aimlessly like that.

~ by Angelica Perez on April 22, 2019 . Tagged: Assignment, Talking Points