The setting is extremely important to a story. It can have immense effects on the plot and the characters. If

Dorothy had been swept out of Kansas and transported to Ohio instead of Oz, the entire plot of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz would be completely different. We would never see Dorothy and her friends gain courage and fight against wickedness. The moral lesson of learning to love your home and family would be lost to readers.

How might the story have been different if the setting were different in “Mericans”?

This is the story Mericans

 Mericans (1991)

We’re waiting for the awful grandmother who is inside dropping pesos into la ofrenda° box before the altar to La Divina Providencia. Lighting votive candles and genuflecting. Blessing herself and kissing her thumb. Running a crystal rosary between her fingers. Mumbling, mumbling, mumbling.

°la ofrenda: offering box.

°El Periquin: the tiny parakeet.

There are so many prayers and promises and thanks-be-to-God to be given in the name of the husband and the sons and the only daughter who never attend mass. It doesn’t matter. Like La Virgen de Guadalupe, the awful grandmother intercedes on their behalf. For the grandfather who hasn’t believed in anything since the first PRI4 elections. For my father, El Periquin,° so skinny he needs his sleep. For Auntie Light-skin, who only a few hours before was breakfasting on brain and goat tacos after dancing all night in the pink zone.° For Uncle Fat-face, the blackest of the black sheep—Always remember your Uncle Fat-face in your prayers. And Uncle Baby—You go for me, Mamá—God listens to you.

The awful grandmother has been gone a long time. She disappeared behind the heavy leather outer curtain and the dusty velvet inner. We must stay near the church entrance. We must not wander over to the balloon and punch-ball vendors. We cannot spend our allowance on fried cookies or Familia Burron comic books° or those clear cone-shaped suckers that make everything look like a rainbow when you look through them. We cannot run off and have our picture taken on the wooden ponies. We must not climb the steps up the hill behind the church and chase each other through the cemetery. We have promised to stay right where the awful grandmother left us until she returns.

There are those walking to church on their knees. Some with fat rags tied around their legs and others with pillows, one to kneel on, and one to flop ahead. There are women with black shawls crossing and uncrossing themselves.

There are armies of penitents carrying banners and flowered arches while musicians play tinny trumpets and tinny drums.          5

La Virgen de Guadalupe is waiting inside behind a plate of thick glass. There’s also a gold crucifix bent crooked as a mesquite tree when someone once threw a bomb. La Virgen de Guadalupe is on the main altar because she’s a big miracle, the crooked crucifix on a side altar because that’s a little miracle.

But we’re outside in the sun. My big brother Junior hunkered against the wall with his eyes shut. My little brother Keeks running around in circles.

Maybe and most probably my little brother is imagining he’s a flying feather dancer, like the ones we saw swinging high up from a pole on the Virgin’s birthday. I want to be a flying feather dancer too, but when he circles past me he shouts, “I’m a B-Fifty-two bomber, you’re a German,” and shoots me with an invisible machine gun. I’d rather play flying feather dancers, but if I tell my brother this, he might not play with me at all.

“Girl. We can’t play with a girl.” Girl. It’s my brothers’ favorite insult now instead of “sissy.” “You girl,” they yell at each other. “You throw that ball like a girl.”

I’ve already made up my mind to be a German when Keeks swoops past again, this time yelling, “I’m Flash Gordon. You’re Ming the Merciless and the Mud People.” I don’t mind being Ming the Merciless, but I don’t like being the Mud People. Something wants to come out of the corners of my eyes, but I don’t let it. Crying is what girls do.          10

I leave Keeks running around in circles—“I’m the Lone Ranger, you’re Tonto.” I leave Junior squatting on his ankles and go look for the awful grandmother.

Why do churches smell like the inside of an ear? Like incense and the dark and candles in blue glass? And why does holy water smell of tears? The awful grandmother makes me kneel and fold my hands. The ceiling high and everyone’s prayers bumping up there like balloons.

If I stare at the eyes of the saints long enough, they move and wink at me, which makes me a sort of saint too. When I get tired of winking saints, I count the awful grandmother’s mustache hairs while she prays for Uncle Old, sick from the worm,° and Auntie Cuca, suffering from a life of troubles that left half her face crooked and the other half sad.

There must be a long, long list of relatives who haven’t gone to church. The awful grandmother knits the names of the dead and the living into one long prayer fringed with the grandchildren born in that barbaric country with its barbarian ways.

°pink zone: a district of popular entertainment in Mexico City.

°Familia Burron comic books: a popular Mexican comic strip series.

°the worm: an intestinal parasite.

I put my weight on one knee, then the other, and when they both grow fat as a mattress of pins, I slap them each awake. Micaela, you may wait outside with Alfredito and Enrique. The awful grandmother says it all in Spanish, which I understand when I’m paying attention. “What?” I say, though it’s neither proper nor polite. “What?” which the awful grandmother hears as “¿Güat?” But she only gives me a look and shoves me toward the door.          15

After all that dust and dark, the light from the plaza makes me squinch my eyes like if I just came out of the movies. My brother Keeks is drawing squiggly lines on the concrete with a wedge of glass and the heel of his shoe. My brother Junior squatting against the entrance, talking to a lady and man. They’re not from here. Ladies don’t come to church dressed in pants. And everybody knows men aren’t supposed to wear shorts.

“¿Quieres chicle?”° the lady asks in a Spanish too big for her mouth.

“Gracias,” The lady gives him a whole handful of gum for free, little cellophane cubes of Chiclets, cinnamon and aqua and the white ones that don’t taste like anything but are good for pretend buck teeth.

“Por favor,” says the lady. “¿Un foto?” pointing to her camera.

“Sí.”          20

She’s so busy taking Junior’s picture, she doesn’t notice me and Keeks.

“Hey, Michele, Keeks. You guys want gum?”

“But you speak English!”

“Yeah,” my brother says, “we’re Mericans.”

We’re Mericans, we’re Mericans, and inside the awful grandmother prays.          25

°¿Quieres chicle?: Would you like chewing-gum?

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