Summary: It's That It Hurts By Tomas Rivera

“It's that it hurts” by Tomas Rivera is a touching personal narrative that focuses on the harsh reality of growing up mexican in America. The narrator gives you bits and pieces of what happened that day at school and allows you as the reader to braid together different strands of his narrative and interpret it the way you see it. He talks about being unfairly bullied by two white boys for being mexican and sent home by the principal who makes it clear that he couldn’t care less about expelling Tomas from school, stating over the phone, “I guess I’ll just throw him out”(140). On the way home Tomas was contemplating whether or not he got expelled from school and thinking of the consequences that would soon follow if he was. It hurt him that people were so racially discriminatory against him and that he couldn’t do anything to stop it.
Throughout the story, he flashbacks to different points of his life where he shows us how important getting an education is to his family. He really wants to succeed to impress his parents, “What hurt me the most is that I won’t be able to become a telephone operator like Dad wants me to”(185). The school staff doesn’t understand his desire for getting his family out of poverty. The principal just assumes that he doesn’t care about getting an education. “They could care less if I expel him… they need him in

He gets thrown into fights and gets bullied often by other kids, “I don’t like mexicans . You hear Mex?”(100) He is seen as a bully himself no matter how innocent he may be, “The mexican kid got into a fight and beat up a couple of our boys…” (133) Many times in the narrative; he wonders if he was really expelled or sent home for the day. There is always a little spark of hope in him that he might not have to disappoint his parents but then gets demolished once he realizes that won’t happen. “ Maybe they didn’t throw me out? Sure they