“Clear the government cheese from the refrigerator. The whole story is narrated in a manner of a guide for a boy to date a girl with different tips depending on her race. However, as the chosen quote demonstrates, the emphasis is put not on the girl’s social status and nationality but on the boy’s. Indeed, the instruction to hide the government cheese so that the girl does not see it implies that the boy is from an underprivileged family. However, to date a girl, one is forced to act like somebody else, denying the truth of everyday life to make a girl like him. Therefore, in such a small detail as government cheese, the author resembles a whole socioeconomic background and the mentality of trying to hide it in search of society’s approval.
“She’ll say, I like Spanish guys, and even though you’ve never been to Spain, say, I like you.” Apparently, as many details mentioned throughout the text of the story imply, the boy to whom the instructions are addressed is from a Latino neighborhood. Among other pieces of advice given to this boy concerning dating a girl, there is this one that encourages him to ignore his national identity for the sake of romantic relationships. The very tone of the sentence in the example demonstrates the omnipresence of a stereotypical perception of Latinos as those from Spain. Overall, the author intentionally takes such a position to indicate the complexity of the life of a minority in a multicultural society.