University High School 7

Ari and Dante struggle with stereotypes surrounding their ethnicity and Mexican-American heritage. Ari tends to conform to negative Mexican stereotypes, influenced by his family and past experiences with violence. Dante, on the other hand, grapples with stereotypes around being gay and worries about disappointing his family. Both characters feel the weight of these expectations, but as their relationship develops, they confront and overcome these stereotypes together. Yeah, Ari and Dante, they confine themselves in different boxes to belong, even if they don't really want to fit in those boxes. A good example of this is the stereotypes that are really present in the book. So some of the stereotypes surrounding their ethnicity and their Mexican-American heritage is Ari really tends to feed into the negative Mexican stereotypes, while Dante really shows he strays away from them because he thinks he's bad Mexican. So I have a question about that, like what would you say their individual relationships with these stereotypes are, that they're categorized in? Yeah, I definitely think that Ari definitely cares, I think he cares more about those stereotypes than he leads on, especially with his brother, and how his brother was arrested and he was in a gang, and there's this kind of, I don't know, they just don't talk about it, and it's also just kind of reflected throughout the story that this Mexican-American heritage is often associated with violence, and Ari solves a lot of problems with violence because he just thinks that's how it's supposed to be, and I think his behaviors are really reflective of his family, and especially his dad. And I think Dante just kind of inadvertently plays into these stereotypes, but I don't think that it's ethnicity that he really struggles with, I think it's more of the stereotype around gay men, and he does worry that it'll disappoint his family and things, and there's like a stigma around, you know, sexuality during this time period, and I think sometimes stereotypes can be good, but do you think that Ari and Dante feel more negatively about these stereotypes, or do you think they kind of make them stronger characters? Well, yeah, they definitely both grapple with the stereotypes, I don't think either of them really enjoy the stereotypes, but like, even at the beginning, Ari feels justified whenever he uses violence because he thinks that's just part of the, like, that just comes with the fact that he's Mexican. Like he really feels the weight of these expectations and notions that are placed on him by society, because of his Mexican-American heritage, while Dante, he's openly gay, so he deals with the stereotypes that come along with that as well, such as being a disappointment. But even at like, as their relationship in the book develops, they both really start to acknowledge these stereotypes, like head-on, and with each other they begin to overcome them.