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Mericans


            
             A first look at the title of the story, Mericans, inspires our thinking. The word has no meaning if one tries to look it up in the dictionary. However, after reading the story, we realize Sandra's subtle-ness of titling the story. .
             Not until the end of the story do we have an idea about the narrator, Michele. The story is about her memory of a day when she and her brothers followed their "awful grandmother" to a church service. It seems that Michele is standing still listening to every single thing going on around her. This can be derived from her detailed description within the church area. Michele pays close attention to her grandmother "Lighting votive candles and genuflecting. Blessing herself and kissing her thumb. Running a crystal rosary between fingers many prayers and promises- (Mericans, p. 30) People going to the church on that day also draw her attention. They walk there " on their knees. Some with fat rags tied around their legs and others with pillows under one to kneel on, one to flop ahead. There are women with black shawls crossing and uncrossing themselves" (Mericans, p. 30). Michele does not seem to be cheerful at what they are doing. Her description somehow depicts her disbelief toward the habit of worshipping "The ceiling high and everybody's prayers bumping up there like balloons." If she was to "stare at the eyes of the saints long enough, they move and wink" at her, which makes her "a sort of saint" too (Mericans, p.31). Michele's big family is presented having really strange names generally depicting each person outside look such as Auntie Light-skin, Uncle Fat-face, Uncle Baby, Uncle Old or Auntie Cuca. .
             The repetition of "We must not We cannot We cannot We must not- depicts her boring feeling of waiting outside the church. She just watches her brothers, Junior and Keeks, playing around. For a while she is deep in thinking of being Ming the Merciless or the Mud People.


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