Introduction
In most people’s cases, complicated life, prison, and poverty break them down psychologically while encouraging them to continue to do bad things or to fall morally. Jimmy Santiago Baca, the author of the memoir A Place to Stand, might have been one such person. However, he refused to take the easy way out and actively pursued self-development, coming out of prison a different person. The author is worthy of respect and can serve as an example that realizing one’s own possibilities is potentially available to everyone and depends primarily on a sincere desire and understanding of such a need.
The Deep Meaning and Understanding of the Title
In the title of the work lies the basic idea and most important concept for the author. Baca was convinced that every person should have a place where he could discover himself and realize his true meaning: “…the pain that still drove my exploration to find a place to stand…” (Baca 62). He likewise expressed it in his other works, beginning with his early poetry. This place is a composite metaphorical concept that includes a physical place where one can put down roots, start a family, and settle, and an image of settling down and finding one’s place in life.
An important detail of this formation is the goal-setting that occurred when the author’s personality shifted during his imprisonment. Baca states, “Most of my acquaintances knew I wanted to do good…,” which indicates a change in him that was even noticeable to those around him (Baca 165). On the other hand, the author makes it clear that he himself could not fully believe his own stress and desire to learn: “…they hadn’t seen this side of me. How could I have told them I hadn’t expected it either?” (Baca 166). It happened because the author identified the need to receive training as one of the first steps toward self-development and acquiring one of the places to stand.
Another significant milestone is the definition of family as one of Baca’s goals. Even if the author did not initially seek to create his own, he valued his old family and was able to forgive all relatives who had harmed him. Initially, he let them go: “My mother, father and brother had all left me to start new lives, and maybe, with luck, I could too.” (Baca 43). Later on, however, he cared about their fate and sought them out to reunite: “…asked for any information about my parents.” (Baca 219). Attempts to restore relations with the family and communication with his mother later are other evidence of the importance of family among the author’s main psychological goals and anchors.
Not to be overlooked is another place to stand – pride and respect for oneself. These concepts were very important to the author and resonated with various problems and hardships of life. For example, even when he was first arrested, he felt ashamed: “The bailiff called my name… I felt ashamed because I was the first one in my family to go to prison.” (Baca 101). In this situation, he often blamed himself, as he sometimes thought something was wrong with him since his whole family had abandoned him. However, he began to realize over time that everyone has their own problems, and blaming himself for being abandoned makes no sense.
It is likewise possible to separate the additional meaning of the title, which Baca indicated not only for himself but for the entire ethnic minority. It implies finding a place in life for all discriminated minority members and equal existence for everyone regardless of race. “Justice was abused by the rich; as proof, this prison had 90 per cent of poor Chicanos in it.” (Baca 187). The author weaves into his memories his grandfather’s accounts of his struggle against the colonizers and invaders of Mexican soil. Thus, along with his discourse on the nation’s humiliation and the lands being taken away, Baca forms the importance of equality for all as another milestone.
Challenges on the Way
Baca faced many challenges on his thorny path, the first of which in his life were familial. His father’s relationship with his mother hurt the child, and the formation of the essential psychological state in childhood was disrupted. “To escape their fighting… I often bellied into the crawl space under our shack to be alone…” (Baca 7). Alcoholism and imprisonment of the father, adultery and subsequently, the mother’s departure were a solid blow to the child. After that, the author had his idea of what kind of future he wanted for himself and his family.
However, the period of family life was short, and only memories of life with his grandparents were filled with bright and warm feelings. “With my Grandpa near me, I was certain that life would always be happy. But when Grandpa had a heart attack… everything changed for me.” (Baca 170). After Grandpa’s death, the author and his brother were forced into an orphanage, where he spent the remainder of his time until his escape at age thirteen. Subsequently, attempts to replace family with the street, mistresses, and friends were unsuccessful, and engaging in petty criminality resulted in prison.
The prison period is the primary time of the formation of the author’s personality, his learning, self-development and construction of new systems of priorities. Baca calls this time for himself “a time of reflection and hard decisions” (180). In conflicts with other prisoners, brutal guards, and himself, a strong character and an inquiring mind are born. In the process, Baca realizes the importance of learning and achieves it despite the difficulties: “study a lot or keep reading books… right now I have a lot of time in prison.” (184). He strengthens his literacy and becomes interested in poetry, which eventually turns into a profitable activity: “I wrote poems for convicts… in exchange for books… and different goods.” (Baca 214). Baca set aside some of what he wrote and intended to publish, making it part of the goal to achieve his place in life. Baca saw his future and his chance in writing, so he did not stop to learn, to strive for knowledge and information.
Family problems continued even after his release from prison, but this did not break the changed personality. The fraud of his father’s inheritance, pulled off by his relatives, and later the deaths of his brother and mother were hard blows that did not shatter but only hardened Baca on his hard path. Step by step, he achieved his goals in terms of family and life position, finding room in himself for love: “…my heart would race and I’d stand at the bars.” (Baca 247). Despite numerous deaths among his relatives for various reasons, Baca still got his way and established himself in most of his important places to stand.
Social Concern
At the heart of the author’s social concern clearly stands racial discrimination in the first place. Virtually all the pain he encountered in his life was related to poverty, poor education, and the attitudes of those around him, which only worsened and developed over time. “…Poverty, violence, murder, abuse and greed” were cultivated on the streets and in prison, even though some of the guards were from ethnic minorities too (Baca 187). Trapped in a noose of poverty, Latinos and Mexicans in the USA were forced to fight the world and each other for the right to survive. It led to all the troubles and most of the crimes, and it is what the author identifies as the root cause of all the problems.
The author likewise identifies the lack of rights among prisoners and ethnic minorities. His social anxiety about segregation and the exclusion of people from poor neighbourhoods from regular schools was one of the reasons he developed and gravitated toward education. “My poverty and aloneness in life were apparent,” he believed even before he went to prison, and focusing on this thought helped him to set goals (Baca 26). One of these goals was to find the cause of social and racial inequality and fight it. Writing helped the author find himself and his place in life, and in doing so, became a method of struggle that was almost the only one available during his imprisonment. Rebellion, social injustice, and the pursuit of development worked their way into Baca’s future.
Conclusion
In his memoir, Baca described his feelings at each stage of life. Every reader can observe the rightness of his actions, his motivations, and the evolution of his personality. Baca did not try to impose his vision on anyone or force a particular action on anyone. However, the general line is reflected in a large number of similarly fractured human destinies. Many members of discriminated minorities, condemned by society to a hard life, may see a ray of light in this work. Moreover, they may, if not take their cue from the author, at least draw conclusions and perhaps break out of the trap of closed-mindedness.
Work Cited
Baca, Jimmy Santiago. A Place to Stand. Grove Press, 2007, Web.