Letting Go of Reality (American HIstory)
In the short story “American History” by Judith Ortiz Coffer, Elena, a young 14-year-old girl from El Salvador has feelings for a young boy named Eugene, who is her neighbor. He was the source of beauty and light she was looking forward to for the new school year. He kept her daydreaming. Yet, Elena will experience undesired events that will impact her life and decisions forever.
Before Eugene moved to the house next to El Building (the building in which Elena lives), there was an old Jewish couple that lived there. She would watch the couple on a fire escape. She felt as if she had a very close connection to them. “Over the years I had become part of their family, without their knowing it of course” (Cofer, 6). She knew what they did and when they did it. As the husband died, the wife became a widow and the house had stood empty for weeks. When she grew a connection with the old Jewish couple, she grew a connection with the ominous hose she had been watching all summer. As Eugene and his family moved into the house, Elena would still go to the fire escape and just watch. After watching him, she thought, “I liked him right away because he sat at the kitchen table and read books for hours” (Cofer, 7). Eugene and Elena would both get bullied at school; they were both outsiders together. This did not stop Elena from liking Eugene. “But after meeting Eugene I began to think of the present more than the future. What I wanted to now was to enter the house I had watched for so many years, I wanted to see the other rooms where the old people had lived and where the boy spent his time” (Cofer, 12). They would periodically walk home together to the point where Eugene wanted Elena to come over his house and study one day, the day of President John F. Kennedy’s death.
Although John F. Kennedy just died, Elena was still determined to go to Eugene’s house. “Though I wanted to feel the right thing about President Kennedy’s death, I could not fight the feeling of elation
Before Eugene moved to the house next to El Building (the building in which Elena lives), there was an old Jewish couple that lived there. She would watch the couple on a fire escape. She felt as if she had a very close connection to them. “Over the years I had become part of their family, without their knowing it of course” (Cofer, 6). She knew what they did and when they did it. As the husband died, the wife became a widow and the house had stood empty for weeks. When she grew a connection with the old Jewish couple, she grew a connection with the ominous hose she had been watching all summer. As Eugene and his family moved into the house, Elena would still go to the fire escape and just watch. After watching him, she thought, “I liked him right away because he sat at the kitchen table and read books for hours” (Cofer, 7). Eugene and Elena would both get bullied at school; they were both outsiders together. This did not stop Elena from liking Eugene. “But after meeting Eugene I began to think of the present more than the future. What I wanted to now was to enter the house I had watched for so many years, I wanted to see the other rooms where the old people had lived and where the boy spent his time” (Cofer, 12). They would periodically walk home together to the point where Eugene wanted Elena to come over his house and study one day, the day of President John F. Kennedy’s death.
Although John F. Kennedy just died, Elena was still determined to go to Eugene’s house. “Though I wanted to feel the right thing about President Kennedy’s death, I could not fight the feeling of elation