Hector Zuniga & Zoyd Wheeler (More or Less Ironic Double Stuff)

[Terrance]

At a time when the climate of opinion (1960s USA) is not conducive to
the traditional rhetoric of the American Dream, making it sound old
fashioned and dated, many Mexican American youths are laying claim to
that dream. . . . The process of responding to the American ideology of
advancement, observed in all other immigrant groups in the second
generation is being similarly reenacted here, although it took longer to
get underway.  What typically took place in immigrant groups in the
second generation is now occurring  among third- and fourth-generation
Mexican Americans. As a phenomenon of noticeable proportions, it is new
among Mexican Americans. Also, these third- and fourth- generation
Americans are facing the problems of marginality and assimilation, which
other ethnic groups met in the second generation. 


Celia S. Heller
_New Converts to the American Dream?: Mobility Aspirations of Young
Mexican_



Hector is a  great expectation and exception, an American Dreamer. Like
Jay Gatsby, he builds his identity from  cultural waste (film and TV
1950s Reagan-debris and the like ... Franklin's work ethic and Hopalong
Cassidy books). 

Robert's point that Hector code switches to his native tongue when he is
excited is spot on. His calling out to the Mother, and the Mother Of
God, is ironically and humorously contrasted with his teasing Zoyd about
the possibility of his having converted (Latter Day Saint) and
discovered his spirituality. 

Chicano Satire

http://www.sscnet.ucla.edu/csrc/gmo/span145/

http://www.sscnet.ucla.edu/csrc/gmo/span145/articles/satirepgs1-30.html