M.T and the All American Struggle

The secret side of Empty visualizes a pretty recent dilemma that America has been facing for quite some time now: Immigration and the feeling of crushing poverty. Sadly enough this novel actually does do a phenomenal job of showing us what it’s like to have a breadbox for a home stuffed with an overworked mother, a stressfully energetic son, an abusive husband and a daughter who just wants a normal life.

…oh yeah, and her entire family is illegal. Woops, forgot that part!

         

      So we follow around a character by the name of MonsteratemyTheremin (Monserrat Thalia) and her daily struggles as a teenage girl who just wants to party and have fun.

No, im just kidding about that

                

      The story is about how M.T (thank GOD they abbreviate it) is trying to live out her life in a world where she feels she doesn’t belong. Her entire family is from Argentia, and they all had the ideal image of what they were trying to achieve: The American Dream.

However, as easy as it may sound, this dream is as lucid as they come.

                It’s difficult for M.T to be at home, with her mother scuffling around the apartment, a shadow of her former self, her rambunctious younger brother Jose and her abusive father Gorge. She’s extremely smart but is considering not going to college, strictly because she has no paper…well that and her family isn’t exactly financially stable. It’s not rare for them to eat the same thing every night for long stretches at a time. And it’s not like their actual properly portioned meals or anything…just lentils.

                “Lentils are the best motivation for a starvation diet when they are the only thing in the house to eat.” (Andreu 22)

                That being the case, however, M.T. has made some pretty high-class friends. Chelsea, M.T’s best friend lives in a massive mcmansion up the hill from her apartment, and has always been there with her through thick and thin.

                A question that has been asked throughout the novel thus far is is it really okay to keep living in America when there is little to be gained from it? M.T would like to stay In America, which is actually a major conflict in the novel. She wants to stay where she herself doesn’t even feel she belongs.

Heavy stuff, right?

Her father wanted to be an architect; well he’s been waiting tables for seventeen years, and her mother stays at home taking care of Jose. It’s great that M.T is smart, but without money, there’s really nothing you can do in America.  

            

    -Taylor R.

                                                Andreu, M. (n.d.). The secret side of empty.