Where do you Stand?

Abstract
Similar to my life, the characters from the novel Under the Feet of Jesus have all faced
many challenges with their identity. Growing up in an area like South Central LA, I have realized
the role I am meant to play and no longer carry on the bad stereotypes of my identity that can
possibly hold me back. Throughout the novel Under the Feet of Jesus, by Vironmontes,
Vironmontes describes the struggles the characters face while living as migrant field workers.
The characters have gone through struggles with race/identity, discrimination, and survival.
Many of their struggles I can relate to because we are all subordinates in society and we all
struggle with being accepted in society as well because of the color of our skin. For example,
when I walk into a store, there are times when employees follow me or keep their eye on me to
make sure I do not steal anything. Even though I would not steal, because of my ethnicity, I am
judged based on the stereotypes put on my particular ethnic group. The question is, why are there
class distinctions determined by your race that separates people? Throughout the novel, many
topics such as stereotypes, race/ethnicity, gender role in society, and socio-economic status all
relates to your place in society.
Background or Context
While life is different living as a subordinate than it is for someone who is dominant,
living as a subordinate is twice as hard. In the Complexity of Identity, Tatum stated, The
dominant group is seen as the norm for humanity, while people are not white are considered
otherness (24). In the novel Under the Feet of Jesus, the whole family never lived a stable life.
They traveled place to place because their father left them. The family ended up having to live in
temporary camps and become migrant workers because they no longer had the support from their

father. The family had nothing to depend on, work depended on the harvest, the car running,
their health, the conditions of the road, how long the money held out, and the weather, which
meant they could depend on nothing (4); there was no stability. Eventually, the family found
themselves at a barn which became their new home. The fact that the family no longer had a
stable life because of their father leaving them, shows the amount of struggle many women face
by not having the support of a man. The issue pertains to patriarchy because many women were
taught to depend on a man in society. Today things are still almost the same because many
women still struggle without a man to help them out. For example, my aunt who I used to live
with struggles herself when she does not receive the help of her boyfriend. There was a time
when my aunt kicked her boyfriend out of the house because he was not loyal to her. Since my
aunt had children with him, living without him made things harder because my aunt was used to
having his help. Eventually my aunt ended up taking him back because she could not support her
children on her own. My aunt needed her boyfriends support because she was so reliant on the
social norm that society created which was women depend on men as their way of surviving. Of
course there are women who are more independent but in the past, women depending on men
was considered the right thing to do because men were considered more dominant over women.
Throughout the novel, there were other topics that are relatable to real life situations such
as stereotypes placed on certain races. Estrella is Hispanic and had to face a downfall in society
because of what ethnicity she is. Her ethnicity affected her socio-economic status because she,
along with her family cannot get anywhere far because they are subordinates as well as poor
migrant workers. In the chapter, The Strike for Three Loaves by Maria Fleming in A Place at
the Table, Fleming described what is similar to Estrellas life as an immigrant. In the chapter,
Fleming discussed how American industries used immigrants to make profit in their industries by

paying cheap labor. Fleming stated how some factory owners exploited the newcomers, paying
them the lowest wages for the hardest jobs (56). Estrella and her family does cheap labor and
are paid the lowest wages. Estrellas circumstance explains her familys living situation and
makes her socio economic status a disadvantage because there is economic injustice.
More into the novel, Viramontes writes about how Estrella was cheated by her education
because of her stance in society. Because Estrella could not afford to wear nice clothes and didnt
have much, her teachers did not care much to teach her the knowledge that they were paid to do.
In the novel Estrella often wondered what happened to all the things boxed away on the tool
chests and kept to themselves (25). The tool box resembled all the knowledge in school
Estrellas teachers failed to give her because instead they were more concerned with Estrellas
appearance rather than helping Estrella succeed. Despite what happened to Estrella, Estrella is
different because she is still growing up and realizing where she stands in society. Although she
is realizing her status in society, Estrella still fights for what she believes is right despite the fact
that she is at a disadvantage and by her actions, it is easy to tell that she will not let things that
she does not believe is right run past her. Similar to Estrella, in the chapter from A Place at the
Table called, The Battle of Spanish Fork the teacher was a fighter for what she believed in. In
the chapter, the teacher decided to fight a local school district that threatened her job and
freedom of expression because she was lesbian (Bennett 129). The teacher was discriminated
just as Estrella in school but under different circumstances. The teacher ended up challenging the
discrimination against her and asserted their right to equal protection under the law (Bennett
129). The teachers fighting made a huge impact on how jobs higher based on your identity.
In the novel I also noticed other issues that related to social justice/inequalities. There
was a scene in the novel where Estrella was afraid that the border patrol was looking for her.

Estrella then tries to get away; Petra ended up telling Estrella to never let people make [her] feel
[she] did a crime for picking the vegetables theyll be eating for dinner (63). Petra was letting
her daughter know that she should not feel guilty for something that would be benefitting the
people who are in an upper class than her. If Estrella and her family were not doing their job, the
upper class would not be eating what they do every day because there would not be people like
Estrella and her family to do the hard labor that is done to survive. The fact that Estrella had fear
of the border patrol is understandable because, darker-skinned minorities have a greater
awareness of discrimination and are consequently more likely to expect Whites to act on the
basis of negative racial stereotypes (Massey and Fischer 50). In the novel, Estrella and her
family are also used as examples of the inequality. Estrellas family work twice as hard doing
hard labor and they are not appreciated at all. The fact that they are afraid to be harassed while
making a living doing things that will benefit the middle class and rich is a demonstration of the
injustice. They have to live a certain way and struggle while everyone else higher up is living a
better life. No one pays attention to people who are struggling like Estrella and her family so
living for Estrella and her family is harder. It is ironic that Estrellas family is invisible to classes
higher up because the hard labor Estrella and her family does, actually benefits those who are
higher up and the middle class or rich do not even realize it. The family put hard sweat and tears
into their job and does not make much which causes the family to struggle.
Estrella is pertained to be the main character in the novel and part of the reason Estrella is
the main character is because Estrella takes action for the things that she believes is right. Similar
to the chapter Road Trip for Suffrage, by Harriet Sigerman in A Place at the Table, Estrella has
the same mentality as the small group of women who issued a Declaration of Sentiments in
Seneca Falls, N.Y., and ushered in the organized womens rights movement in the United States

(67). Despite the fact that Estrella is a woman, her abilities allows her to be a leader and be able
to take charge in certain situations. In the scene when Alejo was taken to the nurse, Estrella did
something that she had no regret doing because of her circumstance. In order to save Alejo,
Estrellas family needed the money that the nurse requested. To take matters into hand, Estrella
went back to the nurse with a crowbar scaring the nurse into giving back the money. In the scene,
Estrella did not stand and let the nurse take the familys money, instead, Estrella was brave
enough to go back where the nurse was and take back what was theirs. Estrella was brave
because she was the only one out of her family who did something about the wrong-doing of the
nurse; Petra and Perfecto was afraid to do anything. Estrella was the person who made things
happen. Estrella was the one who also made Petra and Perfecto take Alejo to the doctor because
if he didnt go, he would just have got worse. In the scene with the nurse, Estrella realized that
the only reason the nurse is middle class in society is because there are people like her and her
family who are poor and does all the hard labor. Estrella came to realize that the nurse owed
them just as much as they owed her (148). Estrellas belief is true because the amount of
inequality that Estrella and her family receives is highly unfair. The way society places people is
cruel because some people are placed poor just so there can be people who are rich in society. If
all the money was split evenly between every individual, everyone can live a middle class life
given the fact that theres so much money in the world. My circumstances are somewhat
relatable to Estrellas and her family. My family is considered poor based on how much income
we get per year. My family and I have been through a lot as well. We went through things from
struggling to pay rent and at one point we were homeless for a moment. The unequal
circumstances in society places people who are poor at a very low advantage making life harder
than it should be.

Towards the end of the novel, Estrella is shown as finding herself and becoming more
confident in the person she is. Her actions were leading her to become more aware of her
position in society and it is her choice to fight against the inequalities and do what she can do to
fight for what she believes is right. While Estrellas mother struggles to find strength in her
religion, Estrella is already on the verge of allowing herself to become the one who she can
depend on to make things happen. Petras struggle to find faith in her religion resembles the
helplessness that many women face while trying to deal with the challenges that they have no
control over. Petra tries to suppress her feeling of helplessness with praying in order to have fate.
Methodology
Based on my experiences with progression 2, I will try to answer my research question
somewhat similar. In progression 2 we asked three people the same questions and got different
answers. This time I will consider choosing individuals that I do not know at all or have not seen
before. Choosing individuals that I do not know to interview will allow me to reflect on the
individuals differently because I would not know what to expect. Interviewing individuals I do
not fully know will also teach me more things like for instance how different areas people come
from can affect how you are as a person. For my demographic, I will choose people of different
races as we did in progression 2 because the answers from each individual was again unique and
actually made me think about how different areas can affect your lifestyle as well. What did not
work for progression 2 was planning out where we would conduct the interviews. We planned to
conduct the interviews in the study room at the freshman dorms. Then when it was actually time
to conduct the interviews, we ended up having the interviews wherever we saw the participant.
Adding more questions to the interview would be good for helping my methodology and
research question because it will give me access to more information from the individual by

forcing the individual to expand their answers. When we interviewed our last participants, they
did not really give detailed answers at first, they were giving straight forward answers. Having a
few questions rather than two or three will get more information out of the participant. We had a
certain technique that I may use for this interview which was making our questions as specific as
possible. When asking the questions, we didnt want the participants to be obligated to base all
their answers off their skin color. The reason why we didnt want all the answers based off the
participants skin color is because we know that not everything that occurs in a person's life is
based off the color of their skin. In the article Keepin It Real by Andreana Clay, Clay stated that
skin color may no longer be a useful assessment of ones racial identity or authenticity
(1349). Clay was stating the fact that even though someone may be a certain skin color, skin
color does not entirely define a person as a whole because you are more than just the color of
your skin. We based our formatting on an article titled College Students Justification for Digital
Piracy: A Mixed Methods Study by Szde Yu. We read this article to get a better understanding
of forming our questions and collecting data. After reading the article, we were able to organize
our information more efficiently.
This coming spring semester, I will be conducting a research project based off of this
research proposal. This research proposal will prepare me for the research project. My overall
goal for the research project is to gather all of my information, making sure there is no important
information forgotten and relate it to the issues in the novel, Under the Feet of Jesus. I will
include issues pertaining to social justice/inequalities, relationships between
dominant/subordinate and categories of otherness discussed by Tatum. I will also include some
of the other issues discussed by Tatum such as race or ethnicity, gender, religion, sexual
orientation, socio-economic status, age, and physical or mental ability (Tatum22). By gathering

all the right information, I will be able to connect the novel to real life issues. I will also be able
to discuss what the issues is within our society that we as subordinate experience. Gathering the
right information is important to address because not only does the information gathered relates
individuals like myself, the information also addresses the problems that are going on in society
and allows individuals think about the injustices.

Works Cited
Bennett, Lisa. The Battle of Spanish Fork." A Place At The Table. N.p.: n.p., n.d.
128-139. Print.
Clay Andreana. Keepin It Real: Black Youth, Hip-hop Culture, and Black Identity. The
American Behavioral Scientist, 46.10 (2003):1346-1358.
Fleming, Maria. "The Strike for Three Loaves." A Place At The Table. N.p.: n.p., n.d.
54-65. Print.
Massey, Douglas S., and Mary J. Fischer. "Stereotype Threat And Academic Performance." n.d.:
45-67. Print.
Sigerman, Harriet. " Road Trip for Suffrage." A Place At The Table. N.p.: n.p., n.d.
66-77. Print.
Tatum, Ph.D., Beverly Daniel. "Why Are the Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria?" n.d.:
18-28. Print.
Viramontes, Helena Maria. Under the Feet of Jesus. New York: Dutton, 1995.
Print.
Yu, Szde. "College Students Justification for Digital Piracy: A Mixed Methods Study." (n.d.):
1-15. Print.