Sammy and Juliana in Hollywood (Pgs 145-216)

Summary:
These few pages start with Sammy going back to his childhood years and explaining how he had no fear when he was a child. He was not afraid of school even if his English was not great. He spoke English at school and Spanish at home with his parents. When Elena, Sammy's sister was born, he was eight. But he was not jealous; he was excited about the fact of having a little sister. Rene, his friend, asked him what if his mother never came back from giving birth to Elena. But Sammy was not afraid. He saw fear as part of his future, something he had to learn sooner or later. Sammy learned about fear when he was in the confessional booth of Immaculate Heart of Mary Church. Sammy hated Father Fallon. Things had not change from Sammy's childhood relationship with Father Fallon, now that he was older. The end of the October of 1968, people were desperate for love, but not Sammy, love was the last thing he was thinking of. Rene told Sammy that his bad attitude about love was all because of Juliana but Sammy told him to shut up. That September, Sammy got a job at the Dairy Queen; he needed to work more than he needed love. Sometimes he'd flirt but when that girl reminded him of Juliana he would stop. It was Saturday night and Sammy had no plans so he decided to call Rene who already had plans with Angel. But Angel accepted to go on a date with him only if Gigi was going, so Rene told Sammy to go with them and he accepted. So they went out, the four of them, they went to get some burgers at Shirley's, and then they went to a party at Charlie Gladstein's. After the party they went to the river, Sammy and Gigi got out of the car so Angel and Rene could spend some time together. While they were in the river, Gigi asked Sammy if his parents have ever told him the story of "La Llorona". He said yes, and Gigi asked him to say it to her. The story of "La Llorona" is the story of a woman that had three kids and a happy family. But one day he went away and never came back. She goes crazy after that because she did not have money to feed their children. Then one day somebody tells her that her husbad went away with another woman. To make herself feel better, she went to the river every night, and cried to console herself. One day there was not food at home so she decided to take her three children to the river and drown them. After that she went really crazy and went to the river searching for her children, screaming "Mis hijos. Mis hijos". Gigi did not like the way Sammy said the story because he said it too fast. For Gigi, "La Llorona" was the saddest love story in the world because a woman loses her husband, drowns her children and searches for them forever. After that Gigi asked Sammy if anybody have ever loved him. He answered his dad, his mother, his sister, and Juliana. Then Gigi said that she loved him too. But Sammy told her that he does not love her the way she wants him to. Then they heard voices yelling, there was fight, Gigi went back to the car, Sammy and Rene went to see what was happening. They were beating up Eric, the white boy that spoke perfect Spanish, and Jaime, Sammy's friend. They were calling them "queers". They started to hit them because they saw them kissing. Rene and Sammy took them to the hospital because they were really bruised. Jaime spent one week without going to school but when he went people were discriminating him. Eric did not go to school. Jaime said that Eric was moving to Pennsylvania, and that he was going to go to California as well. When they went to say good bye to Jaime, Rene asked him if he really loved Eric and he said yea. In 1968, love was everywhere,

Quote:
"I thought about how everybody at school was so desperate to find a hand to hold. As if we were all about to die. And we couldn't wait anymore. We'd waited so long already. And they told us that it was coming, at any moment, any moment now, we were going to find it, We were going to turn around and look into the eyes of a girl or a boy and we were going to find everything we had always been looking for" (Sáenz 211).

Reaction:
As I read this quote, I compare it with love and teenagers nowadays. As the quote says, "everybody at school was so desperate to find a hand to hold", this is seen right now in really young people that be having boyfriends instead of doing what is according to their age. It is true that life is only one and we have to enjoy every minute of it but everything is a process, and a process has steps. It is true that everyone wants to have somebody by their side supporting them whenever they need help but they need to do it one step at a time instead of doing it all together when they are not even ready for it. In relation to the book, love is a way for these people to feel better about them and to have someone to support them by their sides. This is because during this time there is a lot of racism and a war is going on. As it can be seen with Jaime and Eric, just because it was an enigma for two guys to be kissing each other. Their actions caused a controversy in school, and the discriminations of the other students towards them.