Down These Mean Streets by Piri Thomas Literary Analysis (Essay Example)

Down These Mean Streets by Piri Thomas, a young biracial man who struggles with identity and race, goes from rebelling against society to trying to fit in and change his life for the better. Throughout the novel, Thomas describes how he constantly struggles with being a young, biracial man who also struggles with his identity. Born at the beginning of the Great Depression and living in a place where kids were going to gangs and being involved in crime, Piri was in a constant battle of feeling like he did not belong. Piri always felt he was getting involved in things that he should not be, which made him feel so alone and like he was the only one going through these challenging times. Piri recalls that “I caught the inside ones-these damn WPA, the damn depression, the damn home relief, the damn poorness, the damn crummy apartments, the damn look on his damn kids, living so damn damned and his not being able to a damn thing about it” (11). As a result of being exposed to racial discrimination for being black and Puerto Rican, Piri grew up struggling with how to identify. The constant discrimination led him to choose when and where he would be Puerto Rican and black based on his situation and how comfortable he was. All of this picking and choosing and feeling like he was alone caused him to build up trauma with no proper way to cope. With no idea how to cope appropriately, this led him to make some bad decisions and eventually to crime and drugs. “I sniffed and thought how I wasn’t going to get hooked. How was I going to control it? Why the hell did I have to start playing with stuff? Who wants to be a man at that rate? Hell! All for the feeling of belonging...Isn’t there a way to make the scene and be accepted on the street without having to go through hell? ” (204) All that Piri wanted to do was finally feel accepted and try to break out of this hell he was living in to have the life he could have. But unfortunately, one of the few ways he knew of living was by doing what everyone else was doing: drugs and being included in gangs. Piri is trying to get off the heroin, but as he goes through these withdrawals, all he can think about is “pushing stuff to keep my veins happy.” The feeling of what his body was going through was the only way he knew how to cope with all of his childhood trauma and the constant picking and choosing of when it was appropriate to call himself Puerto Rican or black. Once he got out of prison for the final time and got clean of all the heroin, the click was finally made, and he was able to break away from his old life/cycle and get to make life the way he wanted to and not live off of what everyone else was doing. He was able to self-reflect on the good times in his life and recall positive memories, which helped him change for the better. 

Throughout the novel, Piri is seen going through different social classes based on his current situation. At his lowest points in the novel, it seems as though he had become a third-class citizen because he was doing drugs and ended up in jail because of his armed robbery, but then, once he got released, and made the changes in his life, he became a second-to-first class citizen. He managed to get clean from the drugs and started to enjoy his life for what it was. In the beginning, everyone slowly became one class lower than they were previously because of the Great Depression. With everyone becoming lower class and not being able to afford that much, Piri and his family seem as though they have become fourth-class citizens because they could not afford the necessities like heat. His whole family was suffering, whether it was his father complaining about everything or his mom with the heat. “Snow was falling. ‘Mi Corazón,’ Momma said, "Qué frío." Doesn’t that landlord have any corazón? Why doesn’t he give more heat?’... Momma picked up a hammer and began to beat the beat-up radiator that’s copped a please from so many beatings. “How could it give out heat when it was freezing itself?” (9). Even though everyone was struggling during the Depression, Piri also had to deal with choosing what life he wanted to live. Most of the people living in his neighborhood were Hispanic, but being Puerto Rican and black made him have to constantly keep reminding people that he was of Hispanic descent as well. Living the life that he did live, meant that people thought that he would never become a better person or change for the better. Once he got into prison, his social class, as well as everyone else in there, was automatically brought down to third class citizens, and once everyone eventually got out, they were downgraded again to fourth class citizens. But, Piri took the time that he had to make the change so that once he did get out, he would in fact become a first class citizen. ”I don’t dig it myself. I’m so short now that I can taste the street, and it’s like I can’t believe I’m here and the rules and regulations just aren’t meant for me any more "(303). Once he was out for good, and the judge said that he would be on probation for three years, when he stepped out of that courthouse, there was something that just felt so freeing to Piri, and now he really felt like he was a first-class citizen who could do what he wanted without having to worry about rules. He mentions that once he was out, “everything was the same; only I had changed” (322), and that he was ready to live his life the way he wanted to and to finally have the freedom and be where he wanted for good. During Piri’s seven-year prison sentence, he managed to take the time to find out who he was and to work on himself to become a first-class citizen instead of a fourth-class citizen, like most people do when they leave prison. With all the changes that he could make in prison, he managed to show everyone around him that just because you go to prison does not mean that you will stay a criminal or a fourth-class citizen forever.