After reading, Beneath the Shadow of the Freeway by Lorna Dee Cervantes I couldn’t help by relate things to my own personal life. Which then led me to wonder if this happens to other people as well. The poem is about three distinct generations beginning with the grandmother being described as”wise” and being the “Innocent Queen.” Then, it is followed by the daughter who is described as the “swift night, fearless warrior.” Ending with the granddaughter who doesn’t have specific word for herself but we know she has developed masculine traits. As the poem progresses we know there was a male figure who even though was physically there, his presence was useless. Like the author says, ” we were a woman family:”. The granddaughter as the third generation who doesn’t have a male figure in her life has adapted to doing what would traditionally be a “mans job.”  The grandmother built her home once the husband left so she is her granddaughters role model. It is obvious these women had to take the male role as well through out their life’s, can they do both “gender roles” and still succeed finding their sexual identity? A “traditional Chicano family is usually accompanied by a mans machismo which naturally distributes everyone’s gender roles. However, what happens when that machismo is taken out of the equation?

I think this is rather interesting because my parents got divorced in my early teens so the head of the household was my mom and I was the oldest sibling so I right away started to take more work at home. I was fixing stuff, cleaning the yard, fixing things that broke down, and started working right away. I spit the bills with my mom and turned more strict on my baby brothers since my mom was way more softer on them. I grew up to be so independent that my brother now jokingly says I am man. Sometimes I get offended but I remind myself that I am not. He says I am way to strong and act to manly. Sometimes I am not even sure what he means by that. Is this something that happens in a home that is run by just woman?