Diaz explores relationships in poverty - Research Paper Example

Diaz Explores Relationships in Poverty Poverty has a significant impact on the way people live. As in, the story by Diazthe relationships in poverty are a comprehensively strong story in a setting of families with poor living standards in the Dominican Republic and New Jersey. Most of the setting in poverty-stricken areas found in the hidden landscape. Diaz’s story gives grimly matter-of-fact lifestyles in difficult childhoods in the non-conducive environment. The relationship between fathers and their families is not good as fathers feared and if not are not close to their families. On the other hand, mothers over work and look on to fate to decide their lifestyle. The relationships in poverty settings are prone to violence, starting from the parents to children. The mostly affected generations in this environment are those in adolescence and the young adults. The characters in the Drown story fight their way out against an obscured future, and their lifestyle is for the moment, even as they wish and wait for the situation to improve (Diaz, 1). Diaz portrays poverty in a highly peculiar way, and poverty is the main cause of the derailed behavior in these adolescents. Poverty remains one of the chief reasons why many families have a broken relationship or parent to child bond does not exist. Mothers cease from caring about their children and stick to work for most of their time leaving their children with no one to nurture them. Poverty causes most of the parents to work extra hard in looking for food for their families, forgetting how to nurture or parent their children. The conditions that poverty-stricken families reside in tell the whole story as most of them are in impoverished houses lacking electricity. The children in poverty-stricken families misuse their leisure and resolve to use of drugs and violence to get what they want (Diaz, 2). The children from the family stricken with poverty reminiscence on their past and wish for change, but most of the parents have little time with their kids, so they end up in crime and other vices. The vices that the children involve themselves include prostitution and robbery. The little children and teenagers in many families in areas stricken by poverty require guidance and counseling if they are to attain their future goals. The teenagers in impoverished areas look for an alternative to do in order to kill time. This results into crimes and other vices that mislead them instead of encouraging them. Adolescence is another key that teenagers indulge in criminal behavior among them stealing and lack of self-control to the use of drugs (Diaz, 3). The adolescent boys did not have guidance on how to cope with their stage in life. The reason behind this is that their parents worked for long hours for example, Mami, and lacked the time to bond with their children and give them some advice on life. Poverty overrides parental guidance in that the lack of time by parents to bond with their children explains it all. The lack of time to parent the children and derailed relationship results in the parent-child relationship results in vices, such as robbery and illegal gun possession illustrated by many families in poverty. The poverty in many families forces the children in unexplained business such as selling bottles to get money. The main problem that poverty brings with itself is people who do not care because many businesspersons will use children to benefit themselves. This is prevalent in many states that experience lack of resources and guidance. Moral decadence in many societies prevails, as people are victims of circumstances. Separation between parents in many poverty-stricken societies causes the children to look for ways to fend for themselves. The situations in the country are some of the factors that encourage single parenthood. The experience shows how many, adolescents try to survive harsh and violent world full of crime and violence (Diaz, 4). Insecurity in poverty settings caused people to find ways of defending themselves as Rafa looked for a gun to protect himself and his family members. Young people participated in criminal and drug trafficking activities in order to help provide for their families. During holidays like summers, young people involved themselves in different activities some worth to remember others not. In such a society, the youth tends to identify themselves with certain groups, most of the time of poor character. Family members in poverty settings tend not to be in good terms among themselves due to different perceptions of their prevailing situations. They segregated into superiority and inferiority i.e. the most territorial and the least. For example, Rafa could always play superior over his younger brother and shun him. In these settings, different parties always fought to protect their own, and in the process, violence surfaces as the strongest survive. Violence among young people was a regular scenario that others in the same setting had to mediate. People with common goals tend to act in unity to achieve and protect their own and belief whenever they move into new territory. This is evident when Rafa and his younger brother move to Campo for the holidays as friends (Diaz, 6). Individuals coming from poverty-stricken backgrounds found it easy to engage in self-driven activities. With reference to the story, Rafa spent most of his time narrating about his encounter with the young women every day. In this society, there are no boundaries of age as the young are also exposed to adulthood inappropriately. Rafa narrated to his younger brother all the romantic and sexual content of his encounter with the young women in Campo. All the time spent in holidays young people spent enjoying themselves romantically. The boyfriend –girlfriend relationships were exceedingly casual. Poverty also determined how the young presented themselves as they could use single clothing for a long time. Whenever the young in this setting felt threatened, they acted to protect their self-interest. Rafa never wanted his sibling to accompany him to his endeavors. He would beat up the brother to show his level of seriousness. Youths in poverty drowned in their self-interest, such that they rarely cared about their housing. After his endeavors, Rafa would go back to their rats infested, zinc roofed house and tell the whole day’s encounters comfortably. With poverty, there was low education and health awareness. The women were casual enough not to care about pregnancy. They had different believes regarding pregnancy. Some believed they could not get pregnant while others believed in using ignorant ways of avoiding it. Others also believed that pregnancy was not an issue of concern (Diaz, 7). In summary, the level of poverty and the lack to provide for the family leaves many parents in despair and even break families as adolescent kids try to look for entertainment. The difference between the poor and the rich is so immense that the poor kids wish to have a life like that of the rich. This forces them to indulge in petty crimes, theft and drug dealing activities as seen in the characters of the book. Poverty brings about family rifts and lack of parents to child bond as everyday struggles takes most of the parents’ time. Works cited Diaz, Junot. Drown. New York: Riverhead trade, 1997.Print Read More