American Son
A Love between a mother and her child can be so strong that sometimes it is hard for one to express how they feel. A mother¯s love for her child is unconditional and so is the child¯s love for their mother. However, everybody expresses their love in different ways and sometimes the way one person expresses their love can hurt the other person¯s feeling even though it is not intentionally meant to hurt the person. Jonathan Kirsch from the Los Angeles Times writes about the American son, °At every moment, at every level, Tomas and Gabe and their mother injure one another in intimate ways, even when they try to rescue each other.± This quote holds true for the mother and her son Tomas in the novel, The American Son by Brian Ascalon Roley. They both injure one another in intimate ways, even when they try to rescue each other. The novel takes place in the 1990¯s California. A mother comes with her two sons Tomas and Gabe from Manila and works two jobs to provide for them. Tomas the older son associates himself with Mexicans gangsters and breed¯s expensive attack guard dogs to help support the family who was abandoned by his father long ago. Tomas is always causing trouble and worrying his mother. The younger son Ga
be is the good son but as he grows older he strays in the same pattern as his older brother Tomas. Tomas the older son is the son who helps pay the mortgage by selling attack dogs to rich people and celebrities. He is the son who keeps his mother up late with worry and who causes her embarrassment by showing up at family parties with his muscles covered in gangster tattoos and his head shaved down to stubble and his eyes bloodshot from pot. He is half white, half Filipino but dresses like a Mexican gangster that his mother does not like. He is also the son who says that if any girlfriend criticized his mother or treated her wrong he would knock the bitch across the house (15). Tomas seems to do things that hurts his mother but at the same time loves her so much. He expresses his love for his mother by the only way he knows how to which is like a criminal but this in return only hurts her. He lack of knowledge of knowing how to express his love for his mother in the right way is because he was raised up in an expressionless environment. Also, his father was never around to be affectionate him and to show him the right way to express his love so he expresses his love for his mother in a criminal way. For example, he robs people¯s houses by stealing chrome bathroom pipes so he can replace the plastic old pipes in his mother¯s bathroom, a new bed, and a new couch to replace her old hand-me down furniture. Every time Tomas goes to rob people¯s homes he does not steal money but steal things for his mother. He knows that his mom likes perfume so he steals her expensive perfume and jewelry. He does this out of love but of course this hurts his mother because he is committing a crime. He also dresses and acts like a Mexican gangster which his mother does not like but he has this appearance to help him sell guard dogs to celebrities, °The celebrities also like that Tomas wears tattoos that tell you he belongs to the Eight
Some common words found in the essay are:
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Approximate Word count = 1303
Approximate Pages = 5 (250 words per page double spaced)
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