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Professor Rodriguez

Cultural Studies Essay #4

14 December 2018

Horror Parallels Life

It is no secret that the world has progressively encountered extreme circumstances that

eventually lead to the perception that the human race must be losing their humanity. Often we

become consumed with the idea that what happens around us is solely specific to our

geographical and cultural surroundings. In Mariana Enriquez novel The Things We Lost in the

Fire we are taken through a riveting journey into the depths of violence, injustice, and black

magic within Argentina and the epidemics that cause this chaos. As a reader we soon become

aware of the parallel between these epidemics in Argentina and how it reflects on the United

States as well. As the novel goes on the reader is able to grasp and acknowledge the familiarity

of situations unraveling within Enriquez’s short stories. The socio political atrocities came as a

result of dictatorship in Argentina while the commonality of domestic violence stemmed from

centuries of belittling women to nothing more than disposable. Supernatural occurrences

illuminate the blurred line between reality and the psyche as a result of PTSD. Within the short

stories there are gruesome truths of Argentina’s violence, abuse, and social injustice that reflect

the severity of ignored and under reported issues in the United States and the chain reaction it

creates. Mariana Enriquez engrossed her readers with the horror and fantasy her novel brings

together all while subconsciously becoming aware of the familiarity of the national atrocities as

they simultaneously unfold in the United States.

The violation of human rights is often seen coming as a result of corruption and

wickedness in the hearts of those meant to protect us and our communities. There an unfortunate
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number of growing cases of police corruption and brutality specifically targeting certain low

socioeconomic areas and races. In the novel we come across the story Under the Black Water

that depicts a relatively true story of police corruption in Argentina. We see how a pair of young

boys were murdered in the slums at the hands of police officers lacking any moral code. The

police officers were opportunists who deemed themselves God in deciding these boys’ lives

could and should end as they’d have nothing to offer society, they were simply two brats from

the slums. An exceptionally raveging quote from the story goes, “Because that was what cops

did in the southern slums, much more than protect people: they killed teenagers, sometimes out

of cruelty, other times because the kids refused to work for them- to steal for them or sell the

drugs the police seized. Or for betraying them. The reason for killing poor kids were many and

despicable”. (Enriquez 157) This quote is exceptionally important to the central theme of the

novel and how the issue of police brutality is without borders and reflects similar situations that

commonly happen in the United States of America too.

As years go by the crime rates in the United States increase and the brutalness of the

crimes with it. Police brutality has recently been brought to the attention of the public and it has

been shown that officers often target young black men and women to unleash their rage on.

Additionally, firearms have become the greatest enabler to violence on the streets. In the issue of

gun violence it is stated that nearly 100,000 Americans are shot yearly and the majority die. An

article in Cosmopolitan magazine written by Elizabeth Van Brocklin focuses no only on those

perished but also on the people who survive them and the psychological consequences. It is often

difficult to find the proper words to describe the way gun violence may affect someone, but the

article was able to articulate it through this quote, “Together, these victims represent a little

acknowledged or studied diaspora of trauma. "An event like this shatters your belief that you're
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safe in the world," says Gerard Lawson, PhD, a licensed counselor and professor at Virginia

Tech, who helped coordinate the counseling response to that school's 2007 shooting.” (Van

Brocklin) I found that through the quote by Gerard Lawson we can begin to understand the never

ending paranoia and suffering after a violent attack. This remains relevant in a parallel between

the United States and Argentina in how both countries suffer obvious violent attacks amongst

their people, how law enforcement fail to do their due diligence in more ways than one, and how

the people residing in both countries suffer psychological traumas that will affect the rest of their

lives.

In addition to corrupt law enforcement and gun violence, Argentina has a history of being

at the mercy of a corrupt government as well. Similarly, it has become evident that the United

States facing the same charges, only in our case, our government were the puppeteers who

encouraged corruption in other countries for our own benefit. Mariana Enriquez effectively

captured living through corruption and dictatorship through the point of view of teenage girls,

who are prone to be susceptible to the most foul conditions. Her short story “The Intoxicated

Years” shows this as the narrator goes so far as to say, “They’d forced the president to hand over

his reigns before the end of his term, and no one liked the new one too much, even though he

won by an impressive margin. The stench of resignation was in the air, it seeped from the twisted

mouths of the embittered people…” (Enriquez 53). Political corruption is not new to history, it is

what many of the greatest empires have been built off of. As countries like the United States and

Argentina grew, their civil leaders began to be consumed by the wealth and power that came

with a flourishing country.

Argentina spent many decades under back to back dictators who exploited their land,

causing poverty and inflation that affected every lower to middle class citizen in a devastating
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way. As they profited off industrialization, their farmers and land workers were robbed of the

ability to provide for themselves as their greatest river was turned into a dump site for toxic

chemicals and hazardous waste from the meat factories. “Under the Black Water” narrows in on

the conditions of the river explaining that, “at that point the Riachuelo has almost no current; it is

calm and dead, with its oil and plastic scraps and heavy chemicals, the city’s great garbage can”

to really zone in on how the city had allowed for industrialization to inflict this much damage to

a river on the border of the slums, easily accessible by children and pumped through their water

pipes (Enriquez 158). Additionally, in a magazine interview with Adam Vitcavage from Electric

Lit Enriquez gives us her nonfiction part of the story and were she took that inspiration from to

create this short story. She goes on to say that, “These industries run unregulated by the State.

The river is sort of a symbol of carelessness and corruption. The river marks the geographical

limit between the city of Buenos Aires and what we call Gran Buenos Aires, or the suburbs. On

the river banks, there are also many slums”. (Enriquez, Vitcavage) The idea that this was all in

the best interest of the country is easily uncovered as false, seeing as the only people benefiting

from this are the rich who continue to become wealthier. The United States connects with this in

how they’ve exploited the lands of many natural areas to create factories and pollute the

atmosphere, in addition to this they’ve recently dug up pipe lines in Flint, Michigan against the

advisement that doing this would negatively affect the people in the area. It has been over a year

of the people of Flint not having clean water yet somehow we are deemed one of the richest and

advanced countries in the world. Both of these countries specifically target poor areas to enact

their sociopolitical atrocities that are only a one sided winning game. It is common for this to

happen as they create a ploy of making their actions sound good hearted and maybe even

offering some incentive to the people of the area, all while knowing (or at least assuming) the
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outcome will be different than perceived. Once they’ve began their projects and the residents

acknowledge how negatively this is affecting their living standards, they are in no position to

fight back. With little money and little traffic in these areas, known as the ghetto or the slums,

there is little reason for the larger city people to believe anything should be going wrong. It also

makes it evident how little resources they began with and how that number has decreased.

Frequent cases of young people on different continents living in poor neighbors

succumbing to their environment despite geographic locations shows a parallel of the way their

vulnerability is taken advantage of. For this reason, countries around the world formed what is

known as the United Nations, an organization that makes sure countries in accordance with them

are upholding their shared values and respect for their residents ensuring they live comfortable

lives. In a newspaper article by Ramesh Ponnuru titled “The U.S can ignore the UN’s Ranting

about Poverty” because they have been doing it for years and clearly see nothing off balanced

with the way many in their country are living. Bringing up the issue of poverty, the UN created

research based reports on how and what the United States was doing for their people to improve

their lives. Unfortunately, it was found that “The report's treatment of health care is even worse.

Last year the Congressional Budget Office found that one of the Republican bills to change

Obamacare would reduce the number of people with health insurance by 22 million. Much of

that projected decline resulted from the bill's fines for people who go without insurance”

(Ponnuru). That being said, it is easier to target lower income people who cannot fight for

themselves and to brainwash those watching this happen. The article continues to explain how

fees will decrease but healthcare status will be revoked in an attempt to put money back into our

healthcare system. In another twisted attempt to make the rich, richer America’s lower class will

suffer rapid deterioration of medical resources available to aid them and their children. As a
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result of this health insurance cut, another problem begins to arise: Child Homelessness. Being

homeless as an adult is hard enough as it is, but to live through those horrors as a child is bound

to create deeply rooted issues that will play into the development of the child’s personality and

ability to socialize. Through the National Center on Family Homelessness, a scholarly journal

was written that indicates the severity of being a homeless child on the streets stating that

“Without a place to call home, children are severely challenged by unpredictability, dislocation,

and chaos. Homelessness and exposure to traumatic stresses place them at high risk for poor

mental health outcomes. Despite the pressing needs of these children, federal policy during the

last decade has focused primarily on chronically homeless adult individuals—to the exclusion of

the families”. (Bassuk) The structural causes of family homelessness all goes back to the

unsustainable lives instilled on us by governments in both Argentina and the United States alike.

Just like Mariana Enriquez described the southern slums of Argentina, our children will suffer

lifelong disabilities and deformities that will forevermore give them a barely humane way of life

if no one does anything about it.

Amongst the many issues people face in both Argentina and the United States is mental

health. This is probably one of the most silently suffered issues within these two countries for a

few reasons. Many are failed to be diagnosed, live in an environment where mental health isn’t

deemed “real” or they are too ashamed or embarrassed to admit they are suffering from wounds

unseen. Mariana Enriquez encapsulates the effects of people suffering in multiple of her short

stories including “The Intoxicated Years”. This short story is not only of political horror, but of

the mental digression that comes afterwards. We see these three young girls dependant on drugs

and unaware of the circumstances and consequences of their actions. It is hard to believe that

they acknowledge the dangers of the things they do and drugs they take because they have
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become immune to the lows that come with the high the same way they have become immune to

indulging in the thought that their government might get better. As a result, they used drugs as a

means of escape. Confirming what’s been known to happen to the majority of drug users, the

girls began to delve into harder drugs believing they were prepared for them. At one point the

narrator of the story said, “We knew the names of some medicines for psychosis, because we

wrote them down whenever someone mentioned them. When we took the blue pills that we

avoided forever after, poor ximena went so nuts she tried to set fire to the her wooden floor and

she went on and on about all the eyes she saw floating around the house”. (Enriquez 58) Through

this we see how casually the narrator talks about their planned drug use and how she’s indifferent

to the effect it has on another girl. Often drug use is a result of or can result in a form of mental

illness. It is often described as a dissociative property as they try and use their addiction to

escape the harsh realities of their world. In an excerpt from an article on mental health titled

“Mental Health: Awareness is Great, but Action is Essential; Raising Awareness of Mental

Health Problems Should be the Start of the Process of Tackling Them, Not The End” the author

makes a statement regarding the importance of acknowledging one's mental health issues and

helping the person suffering from this understand as well by saying that “This is especially

important for mental health, as opposed to more physical ailments...Many need help and

assistance to even accept they have an issue that requires dealing with. And the more there are

people around them who are "aware" of mental health problems and how they manifest, the more

likely this assistance is.” (Burnett) Essentially this explains that with educated people around to

understand what it means to be aware of mental illness in its various forms, it is highly likely that

someone suffering would become aware and receive medical assistance faster than someone who

was unaware and unaccepting. This is commonly not the case for people in the lower and
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working class of Argentina and the United States as they are set on different priorities. Culturally

this also creates a disconnect between Latin culture and having something wrong with you that

isn’t physical as well as American culture and having a better life than most, therefore should not

be resulting in mental illness. Many times people go their whole lives undiagnosed as the social

stigmas of the possibility of having a mental illness can make one feel as if they are “crazy” or

not normal and therefore embarrass them.

Domestic violence affects an unfortunately large number of women in countries all

around the world and as the United States and Argentina have had many other issues in common,

this one is no stranger to them. Published in the New York Amsterdam News, “Domestic

Violence is Everybody’s Business” is an article that touches base on the amount of people who

ignore seeing domestic violence for fear that they are overreacting or imagining things because

they are familiar with the assailant. A strong point made in this article goes “According to the

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, more than 12 million men and women are survivors

of rape, physical violence or stalking by an intimate partner in the United States over the course

of a year. This number amounts to 24 people every minute.” (Parker, Sharpe) The authors go on

to explain how if this number were written for a different situation like a plane crash the

government would react much different.

The truth is they’re correct, many will avoid dealing with this topic in both countries

because it can’t possibly be that the majority of our men are this violent. In the same breath the

Argentine and American government willfully ignore the growing cries of victims of human

trafficking as their assailants hide behind the shadows and avoid the hard hand of the law. In a

scholarly journal delving into the legislative journey of reformation of human trafficking laws,

we learn that “Although human trafficking primarily takes place outside of the developed world,
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the International Labour Organization estimates there are some 1.5 million trafficking victims in

developed countries. In particular, as many as 17,500 foreign nationals are trafficked into the

United States annually.” (Elrod) This number shows how far from just our laws have been to the

victims of human trafficking and in accordance with this statement a magazine spoke to Maria

Enriquez about the way she portrayed men and said, “I remember having a conversation with a

friend and saying, 'But you never complain when men are portrayed as corrupt politicians,

violent cops, serial killers. Why is that a representation you’re comfortable with?”. (Bett,

Enriquez) This open ended questions allows for the much needed discussion between men of

both countries and how their representation may not be an accurate reflection of the individual,

but so long as they stay quiet on matters concerning domestic violence, they continue to live

tallied up with the evil men of the world.

The novel Things We Lost in the Fire accurately reflected issues in Argentina that

are easily reflected in the United States. Creating an enthralling novel mixed with horror and

truth telling allowed for readers to develop their own conclusions to the short stories. With this

the reader is able to make vaguely familiar connections to the issues they read and hear about in

their daily news, the familiarity will undoubtedly sit unsettled with them and spark a

conversation about how and why these issues are so wide spread yet never slowing down. The

issues without borders seek to be solved and reduced by a willing government, but the ulterior

motives of those in power stingily hold justice back for whatever just reasons they’ve conjured.

Works Cited
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Vitcavage, Adam. “The Dark Themes of Mariana Enriquez – Electric Literature.”

Electric Literature, Electric Literature, 21 Feb. 2017, electricliterature.com/the-dark-themes-

of-mariana-enriquez-dcfc571f239b.

Bett, Alan. “Mariana Enriquez: Black Magical Realism.” CAPTCHA, Spambots and The Turing Test -

The Skinny, 5 Apr. 2017, www.theskinny.co.uk/books/features/mariana-enriquez.

Van Brocklin, Elizabeth. “More than 100,000 Americans Are Shot Each Year. Roughly One-Third Die.

The Survivors, along with Bystanders and Loved Ones of the Dead, Can Experience Anguish

That Is Debilitating and Long-Lasting. As the National Debate around Firearms Rages on,

COSMOPOLITAN, Women's Health, and THE TRACE, a Nonprofit Newsroom Covering Gun

Violence, Joined Together to Investigate Wounds We Can't See: the Psychological Trauma That

Takes Hold in the Aftermath.” Cosmopolitan. June 2018, Vol. 264 Issue 6, p146-151. 6p. 5

Color Photographs., June 2018,

libproxy.elac.edu/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=f6h&AN=1

29350083&site=eds-live&scope=site.

Parker, Kevin, and Nicole Sharpe. “Domestic Violence Is Everybody's Business.” New York Amsterdam

News., 9 Nov. 2017,

libproxy.elac.edu/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=f6h&AN=1

26623816&site=eds-live&scope=site.

Ponnuru, Ramesh. “U.S. Can Ignore The UN's Ranting About Poverty.” News India Times. , 15 June

2018,

libproxy.elac.edu/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=f6h&AN=1

30250419&site=eds-live&scope=site.
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Burnett, Dean. “Mental Health: Awareness Is Great, but Action Is Essential; Raising Awareness of

Mental Health Problems Should Be the Start of the Process of Tackling Them, Not the End.” The

Guardian , Guardian Newspapers, 15 May 2018,

go.galegroup.com.libproxy.elac.edu/ps/i.do?p=AONE&u=mont93762&id=GALE|A538832984

&v=2.1&it=r&sid=ebsco.

Bassuk, Ellen. “Ending Child Homelessness in America.” American Journal of Orthopsychiatry., Oct.

2010,

libproxy.elac.edu/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=a9h&AN=5

4451260&site=eds-live&scope=site.

Elrod, John. “Filling the Gap: Refining Sex Trafficking Legislation to Address the Problem of

Pimping.” Vanderbilt Law Review., Apr. 2015,

libproxy.elac.edu/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=a9h&AN=1

02443655&site=eds-live&scope=site.