History by Gary Soto

This poem is about the author’s grandmother and the way she went about her daily routine. She use to grind potatoes and chiles in the morning, and after grandpa left in the morning, she would hose down the sidewalks, count her money, and go to the market and bring back food items. But underlying all this, the grandmother suffered much throughout her life. The grandmother, at the time this was written, is in her fifties and slowly declining in health, as the passage says that “her insides were washed of tapeworm, her arms swelled into knobs.” Clearly, she and her husband/family are from another country because the poem mentions that the grandmother brought a stone from Guadalajara and the poem talks about them going “from Taxco to San Joaquin, Delano to Westside.” She missed her old home and exhibited sorrow throughout her days being away from there.
One particular thing I noticed about this passage is its structure. It is made up of very short, incomplete sentences that contain about four words per line. I feel there may be two main reasons behind this. One is that the grandmother lived a very simple life, carrying out the same basic routine everyday. The fact that she wakes up every morning and completes the same tasks sets her into a sort of peace and a sense of order amidst her sad thoughts. When she returns from the market and pulls out her peppers, beets, asparagus and chocolates, she smiles due to her satisfaction in completing this task. Another explanation for this is that the grandmother knows Spanish and well as English. Perhaps her English is not sufficient and she is limited in what she is able to say and comprehend. Therefore, the author uses a limited number of words in each line possibly to mimic her broken English and keep the poem as simplistic as possible.
Another interesting point in the structure of the poem to point out is that of line 12. The rest of the poem follows some type of form throughout except for this part, where only one word exists, and that is the word “after.” This word is in context with the sentence “After Grandpa left for work…” which leads me to assume that maybe these “chores” she accomplishes throughout the day aren’t supposed to be done by her. To say it another way, maybe she does these things everyday without Grandpa knowing. Maybe she does these things to console herself from her sorrow that we know she feels as we read later on in the poem; To console herself from her second son’s death and from moving away from her motherland.
Another quality of the sentence structure that stands out is the fact that some sentences start with the same form. For example, Soto uses the word “And” and the word “Of” to start 13 of the 63 total lines in the poem, and each topic isn’t necessary related to one another. These particular sentences are mostly used though to continue a thought about some description. For example, “Of bright coins, AND bills, counted them” and also “Pepper and beet, spines OF asparagus.” One last point to mention is that Soto, in this poem, uses very descriptive word choices in helping use picture his grandmother, saying her eyes were “small with sleep”, her face “streaked” and “shines”, and her skin was “loose.”