Jimmy Santiago Baca

Jimmy Santiago Baca's "A Place to Stand" was intriguing and moving.  His memoir kept me on the edge all throughout.  I found myself wanting more when I hit the breaks or only got pieces of certain parts of the memoir.  His entire story, especially as a boy, was so tragic and sad.  But he survives; he finds a way to move on.  Writing and poetry become his means for an escape.

Early on in the prologue, Baca connects himself, just as a boy, with the land and prison.  "Outside the thin walls of our shack, howling winds swept the New Mexico prairie with violent moans that reminded me of the misery of the jail, its dark gloom and the faces that stared at me from behind the bars.  Again and again I recalled the wasted features of the prisoners, the faraway eyes, pleading to be let out gazing at me as if from a distant place."

Throughout his whole life, Baca was alone and seemed to always be trying to escape.  His father was a drunk and his mother was not there for him.  Early in his childhood, Baca attempts to find comfort and happiness outdoors.  Like many times throughout his life, he begins to relax or find escape but is "jolted back to present day" by something.  Here, he finds himself in an awkward and disturbing position.  He forces himself to watch a strange man take advantage of his mother through the cracks in the floorboards.

"I scratched at the ground with my fingers and shook my head to blur what was happening.  Dizzy and terrified, all I could do was brace my knees to my chest and hug myself in fear as their bodies bucked back and forth and the iron legs of the bed scratched on the wood floor."

This scene was terrifying and disturbing for me.  His description is vivid and exact to the point that I felt his pain; I felt like I was under the crawl space with him.  Also, even though he touches on his emotions and what he was feeling at the time, I thought there was a kind of distance between him and the telling of this, and other, major event(s) in his life.  As the piece moves on, Baca is abandoned over a long period of time.  First, his father and then his mother.  When his grandfather dies, he is moved to an orphanage.  Here, he is separated from his brother, Mieyo, who he "always looked up to."

Another interesting point that seems to connect throughout his life is religion.  When he was with his family, he remembers his grandmother's radio playing mass rosaries.  At the orphanage, Baca is told that the matter of his parents coming back for him "was in God's hands and children shouldn't ask such questions."  This small piece of Baca's life eventually grew into something bigger and became a struggle in his questioning of life.

After turning himself in, Baca thinks about his grandmother kneeling at her cot and praying for him.  "Prayers might help others but not me.  I wasn't strong enough to deal with life on these terms."  He takes a stance against faith, here.  He does not believe that there is a higher power, and if there is it's not going to help him now, especially after everything he's gone through with his family.  Speaking of his family, I found it interesting when he called his sister, Martina, for help.  Within a few moments, Baca realizes the separate worlds they are in.  He hears his mother in his sister.  His sister not only treats her kids in the same way, but also pushes away Baca.  She blocks off her own brother and leaves him for the dogs.

I found the beginning of this memoir different from other things that we've read this semester.  He goes into almost everything that has led to him becoming a writer.  Although he lived a tragic life, he found outlets and ways to push through.  He could have easily given up on himself or the world he lived in, especially with no family to be there for him.  He was on his own since he can remember.  He is forced at a young age (23) to become a man in prison.  I thought his life basically made a change for the better when he began to write to Harry.  He became interested in language and being able to use it correctly.  He used his time to become a poet.