In Search of Respect: Chapter 8 Summary & Analysis

In this chapter Bourgois turns from motherhood to fatherhood. He begins by quoting Primo, who deeply regrets not being an active part of his son’s life. Bourgois notes that “the moralistic debates” around inner-city families tend to focus on fathers’ absence as the problem, when in reality fathers’ presence and abuse tend to be more dangerous. And fathers’ abandonment of their families is usually about a lack of economic opportunity, not some nebulous moral deficiency. Whereas previous generations in Puerto Rico counted on “the omnipotent pater familias,” a respected man who ran the family in every way, Nuyoricans more commonly receive respect and protection from anyone. Like their ancestors, however, Nuyoricans continue to define their own alternative social world, developing pride despite their marginalization. But social change throws these oppositional categories and understandings into crisis.

In the section “Celebrating Paternal Powerlessness,” Bourgois notes that all the men he profiles in the book have children, and none provide for them. They are more likely to be violent and hostile to their families. Caesar, for instance, openly celebrates himself for neglecting his family and focusing on sleeping with as many women as possible. Primo takes pride in living off his girlfriends’ income and setting them against each other, and Luis trades sex for crack. One young man, Pedro, celebrates women who prostitute themselves. Caesar’s cousin Eddie is the only person to recognize that his attempts to sleep with many women are “an escape from reality” (meaning his child and poverty). He also notes that the dangers of El Barrio life skew the gender balance sharply toward women.

Under “Masculinity in Historical Crisis,” Bourgois notes that the older generation of dealers he befriended—namely, Ray, Luis, and Candy—follow the old jíbaro emphasis on having a large family (which was very helpful on rural Puerto Rican farms, but is much less so in New York). Still, Ray and Luis try to have “as many children as possible” with various women and blame those women for their own refusal to support the children. Luis has 12 children with four women, and thinks he has no reason to see them. Ray, conversely, uses his various children as an excuse to switch from his low-paid security guard job to dealing crack—but never actually provides for them even when he is earning well and buys various cars. Primo blames the women’s character for Ray’s refusal to support his children, who number at least eight or nine.

In the younger generation of street dealers, Bourgois notes, reproduction is less important than “sexual belt-notching” as a measure of masculinity. Primo and Caesar are “in their early twenties,” about 15 years younger than Ray and Luis, and think their grandparents were crazy to have so many kids. During that time back in Puerto Rico, Primo’s mother notes, the strong sense of community, trust, and respect in elders, based in turn around respect for the family patriarch, made people’s poverty endurable. Now, in New York, men do not command that respect—and Primo think this makes them go crazy.

Just before his father dies in Puerto Rico, Primo’s sister goes to visit and remarks on the utter “squalor” of his village, which seems even worse than the town where Bourgois visited Primo’s grandmother. Primo has no respect for his father, who is a “borrachón sucio [dirty ol’ drunkard]” and mistreated his mother. When Primo is a child, his father asks him if his mother is sleeping with other men and then has a breakdown when Primo says yes—Bourgois notes that this is a kind of masculine ataque de nervios (a category usually reserved for women). Feeling disempowered and displaying his “despair and helplessness in front of his children,” it seems that Primo's father “beat[s] up the nearest vulnerable female” to make up for his sense of emasculation.

Little Pete, another friend and dealer in Ray’s network, complains about his father’s drug use and absence. Of course, he and Primo are both drug-using absent fathers.

Bourgois’s next section is “The Material Basis for the Polarization of Intimate Violence.” He notes that domestic violence is one of the most important and horrible consequences of his research subjects’ “contemporary crisis of patriarchy,” and that it is not enough to just blame “patterns of family violence” without considering what it would take to break the cycle. All the men Primo ever saw with his mother attacked her violently at one point or another, and he usually hid away while his sisters intervened. At one point, however, he does remember standing between his mother and her screaming, knife-wielding boyfriend. Nevertheless, “Primo reproduce[s] this same cycle of brutality when he beat[s] up Candy in front of her children.”

Sometimes, when they are legally employed, the men in El Barrio do live out the nuclear families they idolize. In his youth, Primo works, has an apartment with his girlfriend Sandra and their son Papito, and even gives up drugs to stay “lovable with [his] kids.” But when his hours change to an overnight shift, he loses time with his family and motivation to keep working, and starts doing drugs. He falls asleep at work and gets fired. After he and Sandra drift apart, Primo is devastated to leave Papito and move back in with his own mother. He decides that “when you’re poor, things just don’t work” in a relationship or with children. But his three sisters “didn’t fuck up”—they have steady jobs, solid relationships, or both. In fact, Primo credits his mother for raising them all well.

Under “Yearning for Fatherhood,” Bourgois describes how conflicted Primo and Little Pete grow when he asks how their own childhood relationships with their fathers impact their feelings about their sons. Primo finds it sad that he could not give his son the nuclear family he wanted to provide, and Little Pete admits that he has “nothing to offer [his son] in the future.” Primo tries to visit his son but knows it causes trouble with his ex-wife’s new husband, and admits that he “called too late” the weekend before. High on cocaine and heroin, he gradually loses his coherency and train of thought.

Little Pete remembers that, when he was with his family, he had no interest in or “time to think about drugs.” When Primo makes plans to see his son, Papito is thrilled, but then he does not follow through—he knows he cannot even afford to get Papito a birthday present. He admits that he could have done so had he not spent the money on drugs. Although he promises Bourgois that he will visit Papito and buy this present, he never does. Bourgois sees these contradictions play out everywhere, including in his neighbors: a boy is delighted to see his father, who is out of prison on work release, but is in prison in the first place for burglarizing his son and ex-wife’s apartment.

Primo’s father soon dies, and Bourgois and Caesar hang out with him as he grieves. He regrets that his dad never met his grandchildren, and that he never had enough of a relationship with the man to feel devastated at his death. Caesar says he feels the same way, although he does have a close relationship with his stepfather. Primo is disappointed that his sister refuses to take photos of their father in his coffin.

Finally, under “Accommodating Patriarchy,” Bourgois shows how the women he meets “eventually broke their abusive relationships and expelled their men from their households,” before finding a new man who often treats them no better. This creates a cycle of “serial household formation […] that partially exonerates fathers” from their duties to their children. Even Candy defends such absent fathers, who should not be forced to pay “a woman [their ex] money to support another nigga’ [their ex’s new boyfriend].” If “you want the package” (slang for vagina), Candy says, “you pay for the whole package deal” (meaning supporting her whole family). Similarly, Luis tells his exes to have their new boyfriends “look out for my kids. Because they ain’t going to get your pussy for free.” Of course, this sense of responsibility contrasts with the men’s pride in living off their girlfriends.

Ultimately, Candy reframes the problem of absent fathers through “a female-essentialist celebration of mother love,” arguing that mothers and children are bound by feeling and the pain of childbirth, while men “just give us sperm and that’s it.” She would never “just, leave the responsibility to the father.” And she would also never make one of her children hate their father. Instead, kids should eventually “learn on their own” to understand their fathers’ disinvolvement. But Candy ends up in a “Catch-22 triumph of old-fashioned patriarchal logic” when Caesar calls her a bad mother because she has no husband and is therefore depriving her children of the ideal two-parent household.