The House of Fallen Angels: Microcosm of an Immigrant Family In the United States, immigrants, especially those of Mexican descent, tend to be broadly categorized into two groups: documented and undocumented. While both classifications are discriminated against by members of the white majority, they are viewed as standing on two sides of a distinct boundary. However, this metaphorical division is rarely defined, and it often bisects families or even individuals. For example, Mexican-American author Luis Alberto Urrea, known for his works pertaining to the Mexican border and “illegal” immigration, admitted to a reporter that he “often felt like there was a border wall running through his family’s San Diego apartment” (“Mexican-American Author” …show more content…
Big Angel lives in La Paz, Mexico, as a child, and his family is incredibly impoverished. In comparison to their meager lifestyle, life in America seems alluring and extravagant. However, there is an obstacle between the De La Cruz family and the north: the United States-Mexico border, which represents a separation between rich and poor and “a transitional zone on the way to the American dream” (Gumbar 135). Dissatisfied with his destitute life in Mexico, Don Antonio, Big Angel’s father, leaves his family for a woman and job in the United States. Big Angel is now removed from his father by thousands of miles and a border wall. This uproots the structure of the De La Cruz family, forcing Big Angel to care for the rest of his family. Although Big Angel is barely a teenager at this point, his “siblings [look] up to him [...because] Don Antonio had abandoned them” (The House 97). By crossing the border with the aspiration of wealth, Don Antonio upends the family hierarchy and forces his child to become the caretaker, a responsibility that haunts Big Angel later in life. Even on his deathbed, Big Angel’s attempts to maintain his authority and his tendency to refuse help reveal the rift within the family caused by the US-Mexico border. Near the end of the novel, Big Angel is unable to …show more content…
Because of Don Antonio’s relationship in the United States, the citizenship divide between the family members does not run neatly through generations, as many assume it would. While Lalo, one of Big Angel’s sons, brings “shame to the family when he [is] summarily deported,” Big Angel’s half-brother Little Angel is the son of “the ultimate Americana” and is therefore a full citizen of the United States (The House 116, 166). Lalo serves in the United States military, but he is ironically still treated as a criminal for being born in Mexico. The fact that the young man receives far worse treatment than his uncle on the grounds of his birthplace, which he leaves as an infant, creates a rift in the family. The tendency of the American law to classify a person’s worth by his or her citizenship status thus backfires and constructs deeper divisions within society in place of the uniform, “all-American” structure for which many of its supporters aim. Lalo, Little Angel, and the rest of the family battle with the “partition within the brotherhood” that forms, just as the Mexican-American population’s range of statuses challenges the “presumed homogeneity the Wall was supposed to create” (Manzanas 20). Because the De La Cruz family and other Mexican-Americans are treated differently based on their birthplaces, the laws of the United States can foster resentment