“Children gotta be with their parents, family got to be together.”
Separation from the family in The Cariboo Café.
In the short story by Helena Maria Viramontes, “The Cariboo Café”, discusses numerous
important difficulties that many immigrants confront each day in the United States. The
short story is divided into three parts, each with its own plot. Each part depicts a distinct
issue that the Chicano/a community is dealing with. A striking theme is the way in which
the issue of the family and the fateful fact that it is separated is treated.
On the first hand, notion of the disintegration that separates the children from any kind of
family gains pace in consecutive sections. The first section of the text, presented from the
perspective of Sonya, who has lost her key of the apartment where she lives with her
brother Macky and her father, continues to explore fragmentation. The key becomes a
symbol of protection and comfort for her family, bringing them closer together. The loss
of the key suggests the beginning of her family's disintegration. In this way, as Sonya lost
the key, she has been disconnected from it, which she refers to as her "guardian saint,"
and the children have been isolated from the fundamental source of safety and unity in
their life, the location where their family is complete. The first image, with the children
shut out of the residence, represents the beginning of the disintegration of the family's
nucleus.
On the second side, the woman who has the children is a sad and upset mother who has
lost her only child in the most terrible of circumstances. As a result, her desire to live and
passion for life had vanished along with her son. The loss of him and the extreme guilt
she feels has destroyed her life. The lady must deal with the idea that someone has
unjustly broken the physical relationship she had with her kid. This is a crisis that is also
found in the owner of the café, who is also suffering the loss of his son in the war.
Overall, the family is the fundamental component of any society, where everyone, united
by blood ties or affinities, can project and develop. In this text, the fact of having lost a
family member has shattered the lives of our characters. Ultimately, children gotta be
with their parents, family got to be together.
