As Jaquira Diaz keeps on telling her story growing up as a juvenile delinquent teen, it was not always a negative side there are times where she had good times. When she was 16 years old she met a man named Cheito, both of them fell in love (they had the same family issues and shared things in common) and started dating. Jaquira introduced Cheito to her family (bad idea since she hates her mother, father and Anthony) and everyone loved him. The family keeps on telling Jaquira that she better not miss it up since her life is already hard enough. When Cheito introduced Jaquira to his family, they were mostly having a bad feeling about her since she is delinquent and dosne;t want him to go down a bad path. But they still accepted that she is Cheito’s girlfriend. When Jaquira sat down to eat with Cheito and his family, she felt something that she never experienced. She felt “love in the room… everyone is smiling.. Saying please and thank you like an ordinary fucking family. This is what a family was supposed to be, people who actually loved each other. I felt robbed” (Diaz, 199). It tells of the realization that Jaquira was missing out on her teen (properly whole life), it was love. She never experiences love in her family since they’re dysfunctional and the only person she loves is her sister, Alaina. She felt that this is what led her to this path. Without love she was a delinquent and if she was loved by her family she would have been living the good life.
It’s sad that it affected Jaquira, but it also affects other people when it comes to not having love. Without love (either romantic, friends or family support) people will feel lost and go down a dangerous path. They do something that they would regret and release that they weren’t loved by others and that’s why they went down a bad path of darkness. People need to be loved in order to maintain a sustainable and good life (unless the person is a criminal, scammer, jerks, psycho and socialpth they don’t need love since they’re already on a path that they can’t return.).
Angel, I enjoyed how you explain everything that was going on in the section. I think that we can both agree that Jaquira’s dysfunctional family and traumatizing past lead her to make the horrible regretful decisions she made. What most parents don’t tend to realize is that their decisions impact their kids, no matter if the decision was a right or wrong one. Kids also learn from their parents, so if you use drugs and drink alcohol your kids are most likely going to gravitate to do the same, and that’s what Jaquira did.
well written post ! It’s really sad that not all people receive love , and as you said that lead them to dark places like alcohol, toxic relationships, and toxic peers!