How does Migdalia Cruz use imagery in Telling Tales?

Cruz refers to Latinos and other minorities in America as "people of color," and perhaps the most prevalent form of imagery that she uses throughout Telling Tales is color. Papo is the only person on the block with green eyes. A church smells purple. A rapist's teeth are golden but marred by blood and vomit. In his picture, Jesus has a "bluish-red heart."

Cruz's characters recollect people through color. The narrator of "Yellow Eyes" describes her great-grandfather, whom she loved: his brownish-green sweater, his brown pants, his undershirt stained with cherry red spots, his yellow eyes. Even his mucus "smells yellow." By contrast, she describes her great-grandmother, who condescended to the entire family, through her delusional actions. Her characters also recollect moments from their past through color. The narrator of "Parcheesi" remembers the shades of the childhood she shared with Sharon, whose last name is a color itself: Gray. Their school was filled with mint green and brown, the teacher who called Sharon stupid had white teeth, and Sharon had skin as black as "polished wood."

In other instances, the associations with color are less concrete. The narrator of "Loose Lips" ties color with ideas rather than with clearly explicated memories. For her, silver is a "mystical" color, a shade for people who care about their past and their ancestors, a shade for people of color, not people who are Caucasian. "I want to have a silver life," she says, but America is not a silver country. America has "silver nail polish and silver eyeshadow, but no silver foundation." Silver represents people of color, Puerto Ricans like Cruz and her narrators, or Asians, or African Americans like Sharon, or Native Americans like the sisters in "Sky." Their unique cultures accent white America but are not yet accepted or desired as a core part of its essence.