Edison, New Jersey

Edison, New Jersey
Junot Diaz

"If I were to park the truck and get out nobody would take me for a deliveryman; I could be the guy who's on the street corner selling Dominican flags. i could be on my way home to my girl. Everybody's on the street."

I think this line is very powerful when discussing status. The status of wealth plays a big role through out the the story. The narrator can tell a lot about a person by what kind of table they order, their name, and what town they live in before they even get to the house and meet the person. You get the sense that he is very insecure about his status, his job and how he is. He steels things because he feels he is entitled to do so. He somehow blames the wealthy for his lack of wealth. He just isn't relaxed.

You can tell that in this line when gets to New York he suddenly has this feeling of comfortability where all of that goes away. He doesn't feel judged by the truck. No one is looking down on him because they assume he is a delivery boy or a scoundrel.