“Calidad. Quality” What does it equal?
What is it that makes one human being “superior” to another? Or are we all equal, if so what makes us equal? In “Never Marry a Mexican” what made it appropriate for Clemencia to say that her father a Mexican had married down by marrying her mother a Chicana but would have married up if he had married a white woman from el otro lado”? Could it be the material things we own that give us value and make us superior?
Well apparently Cisneros’ happens to think that indeed the material things we own and flaunt have much to do in the way one is seen and classified by others. The first indication of this is found on page 71 where she illustrates Clemenia’s father. She writes, “My father in his shark-blue suits with the starched handkerchief in the breast pocket, his felt fedora…and heavy British wing tips with the pin-hole design on the heel and toe. Clothes that cost a lot. Expensive. That’s what my father’s things said. Calidad. Quality.” In my opinion she has decided to add this detail to make a correlation between one’s superiority and ones valuable belongings as well as appearance.
And if this first example was not obvious enough she does it again on page 81. Here she emphasizes once more on this word, “calidad” as she describes Megan, a white woman, Drew’s respectable wife and mother of his beloved son. Cisneros writes, “I found myself opening the medicine cabinet looking at all the things that were hers. Her Estee Lauder lipsticks. Corals and pinks, of course….On the door hook – a white robe with a MADE IN ITALY label, and a silky nightshirt with pearl buttons. I touched the fabrics. Calidad. Quality.” It is now clear at least to me that her technique of highlighting on the term “quality” when referring to these two very different characters is to illustrate the similarity in their superiority.
