"As soon as she arrived she went straight to the kitchen..." (1 Heker)As a white man, I have not had to face the sickening struggle of being a victim of racism or judged because of my ethnicity. To be able to judge someone because of how they look or because of the single-story that has been painted into your mind about how that person(s) should be treated and then be able to look in the mirror and not feel disgusted has always baffled me. In line 1 of "The Stolen Party", Rosaura is ignorant to the reason that she's accustomed to walking into a house and going straight to the kitchen. This pattern that Rosaura just sees as "routine" is just one of the examples of the ethnic discrimination that she and her mother face.
In line 17, the speaker says "Rosaura loved everything in the big house,..." If after this (and line 12 where Rosaura's mother tells Rosaura that she's simply "the maid's daughter") you could not figure out that Rosaura was just a part of "the help" and was not viewed as a person in a position to have any power whatsoever, then my only advice is to stick to SparkNotes. However, let's delve deeper into the class distinction so blatantly present. At the end of "The Stolen Party", Señora Ines directs a micro-aggression towards Rosaura.
"Señora Ines didn't look in the pink bag. ...'Thank you for all your help, my pet.'" (lines 134-136)Señora Ines didn't mean to be a complete b**** (I don't think so, at least), but she was mostly raised in a house where she had help that was only ever thought of as just that, and only ever thanked monetarily because they were viewed as poor. It's micro-aggressions just like this one that can tear apart groups of people.
Hate is not innate, but rather a useless trait inherited by bigots that one is surrounded by at a young age.
