The Hammon and the Beans by Américo Paré;des
"The Hammon and the Beans" by Américo Parédes is a poignant short story set in the 1920s in Jonesville-on-the-Grande, a small Texan town near the Rio Grande. The narrative revolves around a young boy's reflections on his childhood experiences, particularly his interactions with Chonita, a girl from a less fortunate background. The story paints a vivid picture of the socio-economic divide in the town, where the boy’s family is relatively stable while Chonita's family struggles with poverty and alcoholism.
As children, they gather near Fort Jones, where military signals dictate the town's rhythm. Chonita, who tries to assimilate by mimicking the soldiers' English, becomes a symbol of innocence and hardship. The narrative takes a tragic turn with Chonita's untimely death, prompting reflections on social indifference and the complexities of human emotions surrounding death. Through the boy's perspective, themes of childhood innocence, class disparity, and the harsh realities of life emerge, making it a compelling exploration of cultural and personal identity in a border town setting.
The Hammon and the Beans by Américo Paré;des
First published: 1963
Type of plot: Social realism
Time of work: The 1920's
Locale: Jonesville-on-the-Grande, a fictitious Texas town
Principal Characters:
The narrator , a young child at the time of the storyHis father His mother Chonita , a young girlDr. Zapata , a friend of the narrator's father
The Story
The narrator recalls his boyhood during the 1920's, when he was growing up in Jonesville-on-the-Grande, a small town on the Texas side of the Rio Grande.
The boy lives a block away from Fort Jones in his grandfather's large frame house, where his mother complains about pigeons in the eaves bringing fleas. The town regulates its activities by the trumpet and cannon signals emanating from the fort, where soldiers have been stationed since border troubles ten or so years earlier.
In the evenings, children gather by the fence outside the fort to watch the flag lowered. On the days when they study in school about heroes of the American Revolution, such as George Washington and Marion the Fox, they cheer and salute as the fort's soldiers lower the flag. On days when they hear local men discussing the border incidents of the previous decade, they jeer. Whether the children cheer or jeer, however, the soldiers in the fort are indifferent to them.
None of the children ever goes inside Fort Jones except Chonita. Entering through the entrance leading to the poorest part of town, she watches the soldiers eat; afterward, the cooks come out, scold her for coming inside, and give her food. Chonita's family lives in a shack that was originally a shed on a vacant lot that the narrator's grandfather owns. He charges them no rent, but as a kind of payment, Chonita's mother does washing for the narrator's family. Thanks to a building boom in the Rio Grande Valley, Chonita's father is now working. Although he spends most of the money that he earns on drink, enough remains to buy corn for the family. "He was the breadwinner, you might say, while Chonita furnished the luxuries."
In the evenings, the neighborhood children gather to urge Chonita to speak English to them. She tries to repeat what she has heard the soldiers saying as they eat in the fort. Perched on a fence in an alley with the children in front of her, she says, "Give me the hammon and the beans." Her younger siblings are proud of her, but the other children merely laugh, telling her that she speaks English better than the teachers in school. The narrator thinks that all of this is a bad joke, which he wants to end so that they can play.
After the narrator contracts malaria, he is unaware that Chonita has also become sick. One night, Dr. Zapata comes to his house and announces that Chonita is dead. The narrator's father regrets not having known how sick Chonita was, although he says that her passing is not really his affair. The mother comments that Chonita is now in heaven and happy, but the doctor is upset because Chonita's father was drinking and laughing with friends when he left Chonita's house. The narrator's father points out that the man is actually Chonita's stepfather; however, the narrator's mother says that no one can tell what the poor man was feeling.
Dr. Zapata then says that in classical times, the people were more "humane": When the Greeks conquered Troy, they "grabbed the babies by the heels and dashed them against the wall." The narrator's father accuses the doctor of sounding like his relative, the Mexican revolutionary leader Emiliano Zapata. The doctor denies that he is related to the famous revolutionary and insists that he is conservative.
The narrator himself is not fully recovered from his illness, so his mother sends him back to bed. He imagines Chonita in heaven, wearing "her torn and dirty dress, with a pair of bright wings attached, flying round and round like a butterfly shouting, 'Give me the hammon and the beans.'" Then, he cries and feels better.
For Further Information
López Morín, José R. The Legacy of Américo Paredes. College Station: Texas A & M University Press, 2006. A fascinating look at the life and work of Mexican American folklorist Américo Paredes. Author López Morín does not focus on Paredes' writing alone, but examines the role he plays in Chicano culture. López Morín looks at Paredes' emphasis on folklore as performance and oral tradition, and how it helped shape his understanding of Mexican culture. Contains photographs, a thorough listing of Paredes' works, and a bibliography of secondary sources.