JE#6

I did not feel that any one character deserved either a 0-1 or a full 10 due to the fact that there is no way to measure cultural schizophrenia, instead I can only approximate what i feel is a range based on my observations and readings of the characters. With that disclaimer, let's begin:

3 Lena: I was drawn to the character of Lena because of her immediate reaction to the murder of her father. Lena does not agree with the judicial system and the way in which the Anglo officer got away with murder. She also rebels on a daily basis and is well-aware of the sexism and slut shaming that occurs in her family. I did not score her higher because I feel that the brief instances in which she appeared were based on the immediate grief of her father's death and her character was not fully developed, also she still obeyed patriarchal authority i.e. Miguel Grande when she began to question the system. 

3 Lola: She is a woman who is in complete control and awareness of her sexuality, and she does not apologize for it. However, she is still very much affected by Miguel Grande's actions and feelings toward her, clouding her judgement and making her dependent on him emotionally.

3 JoEl: I did not give JoEl a higher score for a couple of reasons, (1) he has internalized sexism and thi s shows in the way in which he treats Angie, often belittling her and making fun of her accent (linguistic terrorism). However, he is a victim of sexual abuse and has no idea how to reconcile this, in turn he is emotionally unstable and unable to process what has happened. 

3 Nina: She allows herself to learn and she uses spirituality to find meaning. however she is very violent toward her children in her way of punishing them. 

5 Felix: This one I found quite hard to grade. Although I understand that a lot of his actions stemmed from his closeted homosexuality, he used his male privilege and status as family patriarch to sexually abuse JoEl and also treated Angie unfairly. Finally, he inherited linguistic terrorism from Mama Chona, who taught him to speak "Castiian Spanish."

6. Angie: She has inherited internalized sexism and patriarchy, by negating Felix's sexual abuse of JoEl, allowing it to continue for years, fully knowing that Felix is seen as charismatic amongst his family. She also internalizes a lot of this sexism in letting her son JoEl humiliate her. 

7 Miguel Chico: Although he is far away from the family by choice, he still holds a lot of stigmatized views about his family. He has internalized racism and linguistic terrorism in his policing of language and critique of is own family. He has a deep seated sense of shame for his family, and does not recognize that they form a part of him. 

7Juanita: Her character holds a lot of internalized sexism and patriarchy in her treatment of Miguel Grande's affair with Lola. Juanita remains with Miguel Grande even after she finds out about the affair and does not get a divorce. 

9 Miguel Grande: The biggest patriarch in the novel, he benefited greatly from this status and had an impact on the lives of every character. His affair with Lola allowed him to benefit from marriage with Juanita and still keep Lola around without any accountability. He is the de-facto Mama Chona, who hates and denies their indigenous ancestry and treats Maria the maid badly simply because of her background. He also speaks the imitation "Castilian Spanish" and has a bad relationship with Miguel Chico after the latter refuses to conform to Miguel Grande's standards of masculinity. 

9. Mama Chona: I gave her the highest score because of her specific position as reigning matriarch, and because her actions reflected significantly on the rest of the characters. It was her own internalized racism, sexism and historical amnesia, as well as her homophobia that created the family's set of values. She spoke an imitation of Castillian Spanish to conceal her indigenous background and held racist ideas about skin color, hating her own brown skin. Furthermore, she defers her authority only to Miguel Grande, internalizing patriarchal norms.