American History

“At almost any hour of the day, El Building was like a monstrous jukebox, blasting out salsas from open windows as the residents, mostly new immigrants just up from the island, tried to drown out whatever they were currently enduring with loud music.”

El Building is the tenement in which Elena lives. Its box-like structure suggests a jukebox, as does the music emanating from it, but that is where the word’s cheerful connotations end: El Building’s residents are enduring hardship and use the music to distract themselves from their woes. Though Puerto Ricans are (and were then) American citizens, the US has often treated them as foreigners due to their ethnic and linguistic differences. By broadcasting salsa music, the residents seem to be both defending their heritage and demonstrating their desire to belong.

“But the day President Kennedy was shot, there was a profound silence in El Building; even the abusive tongues of viragoes, the cursing of the unemployed, and the screeching of small children had somehow been muted.”

Cofer uses sensory details to describe how El Building responds to Kennedy’s death. She enumerates what sounds one normally hears in the building, their absence underscoring everyone’s profound shock and respectful observance of the tragedy.

“He would become part of the hierarchy of martyrs they prayed to for favors that only one who had died for a cause would understand.”

Following Kennedy’s death, American society at large immediately canonized him as an almost legendary figure, the idea of him outshining his actual legacy as president. Among the Puerto Rican residents of El Building (who, like the slain president, are Catholic), he enters a “hierarchy” of saints. The messages of hope and progress that resonated with Americans broadly are even more potent in El Building, mirroring the dreams of those who have moved to the mainland.

“I had learned to listen to my parents’ dreams, which were spoken in Spanish, as fairy tales, like the stories about life in the island paradise of Puerto Rico before I was born.”

Elena describes her parents’ nostalgia for Puerto Rico, which seems like a faraway place due to both geography and the Spanish that her parents use to talk about it. They are perhaps using language to delineate between the lives they had in Puerto Rico, the one they have in Paterson, and the lives they hope to resume when they return to Puerto Rico.

“Most of all, I wanted to sit at the kitchen table with Eugene like two adults, like the old man and his wife had done, maybe drink some coffee and talk about books.”

In imagining herself coupled with Eugene, Elena uses the old man and woman who used to live in Eugene’s house as a point of reference. She admires their lives of quiet routine. As an adolescent, Elena is starting to think about the kind of romantic life she wants, but she does not look to her parents for a model. Having grown up in the United States, she has absorbed ideas about love, sex, and marriage that don’t necessarily align with those of her parents.

“I had started reading Gone with the Wind. I was enthralled by it, with the daring and the passion of the beautiful girl living in a mansion, and with her devoted parents and the slaves who did everything for them. I didn’t believe such a world had ever really existed […].”

The classic novel by Margaret Mitchell becomes a point of connection between Elena and Eugene, who, like the novel’s protagonist, also comes from Georgia. She projects herself onto Scarlett O’Hara, but she is too young to understand and grapple with the novel’s problematic history and setting, instead focusing on the romantic aspects of Scarlett’s life. While Elena mentions slavery, she does not comprehend the cruelty that facilitated Scarlett’s luxurious lifestyle.

“Though I wanted to feel the right thing about President Kennedy’s death, I could not forget the feeling of elation that stirred in my chest. Today was the day I was to visit Eugene in his house.”

Cofer contrasts Elena’s feelings of infatuation with the general mood of grief that day. Elena is morally aware and knows that her happiness over seeing Eugene doesn’t correspond to the public’s mood; the fact that she already feels like an outsider in American society presumably makes her all the more anxious to “feel the right thing” in response to this national event. Cofer illustrates here how one’s private world can differ sharply from what’s happening more broadly.

“You are forgetting who you are, Niña.”

These words of warning from Elena’s mother come after Elena insists on meeting Eugene instead of accompanying her mother to church that evening. Elena’s mother addresses her with the Spanish word for “daughter” to remind her of who she is culturally. While Elena’s mother’s words reflect the concern that many mothers have around teen sexuality, she also fears that Elena will adjust herself to suit the needs and interests of this white Southern boy instead of remaining true to her own lineage and traditions.

“It always amazed me how Paterson, the inner core of the city, had no apparent logic to its architecture. Small, neat, single residences like this one could be found right next to huge, dilapidated apartment buildings like El Building.”

Elena compares Eugene’s house to where she lives—El Building. In contrasting her residence to Eugene’s, she illustrates the stark class differences that exist within Paterson and the United States as a whole.

“My guess was that the little houses had been there first, then the immigrants had come in droves, and the monstrosities had been raised for them—the Italians, the Irish, the Jews, and now us, the Puerto Ricans, and the blacks.”

While contemplating the composition of her neighborhood, Elena thinks about its residential history. The tenements were constructed to house those who migrated to the region—groups who were often poor and socially undesirable. By the 1960s, the tenement mostly housed Puerto Rican and Black residents. Unlike their predecessors, these people had long been citizens but were denied full social, political, and economic rights.

“I couldn’t move. I just stood there in shock at hearing these things said to me in such a honey-drenched voice. I had never heard an accent like hers except for Eugene’s softer version.”

Elena reacts to Eugene’s mother’s rejection of her. She notes the difference between the sweet-sounding Southern accent and the harshness of the woman’s words. Elena doesn’t yet fully realize it, but this is her first direct encounter with racism: Eugene’s mother rejects her because she is Puerto Rican.

“Our apartment was empty when I got home. My mother was in someone else’s kitchen, seeking the solace she needed.”

Both Elena and her mother need comfort, albeit for different reasons. Ironically, neither is available to console the other due to the disparity in their experiences and feelings that day. This mirrors the premise of the story as a whole, which depicts the way prejudice and inequality fracture what ought to be a moment of national unity.

“They would not discuss their dreams for the future, or life in Puerto Rico, as they often did; that night they would talk sadly about the young widow and her two children, as if they were family.”

Elena refers to the people in her neighborhood and how the assassination changed their usual conversations. She notes how her neighbors feel connected to the Kennedys—particularly the president’s widow, Jacqueline, and his children, Caroline and John. The feeling of loss is palpable and identifiable despite differences in race, class, and power, highlighting the event’s status as a distinctly American tragedy.