"And the Earth Did Not Devour Him" by Tomas Rivera

This short story focuses on a migrant boy whose family works in the fields. His father gets sunstroke, and the family worries that he will die. The boy, who remains unnamed throughout the story, became angry because he “was unable to do anything against anyone” (71). I don’t understand this. Why would he want to do something against someone? Shouldn’t he be made because he isn’t able to do something for anyone? His anger at God steadily boils, and when his nine-year-old brother also gets sick, he snaps and curses God. His parents had instilled a fear in him of talking badly of God, and the boy feared that the Earth would open up and swallow him, but it did not. By the morning, his father and brother were doing better, on the road to recovery. The part of this story that had the most impact on me was when the boy was talking to his mother about their lives and being poor, and his mother said, “Only death brings us rest” (74). I think that this phrase most accurately describes the lives of the migrants and Mexican Americans living or working in America during the 1940s and 1950s. Between working all day, taking care of their families, and constantly being ridiculed by Americans, it seems true that only once they passed into the next life would they finally be in absolute peace and rest.