Mexican WhiteBoy

Hawks appear throughout Mexican WhiteBoy and serve as both motif and symbol. To the reader, the hawk is a motif whose repeated appearance reminds the reader that the protagonist is fatherless. To Danny, however, the hawk is symbolic of his father. The first mention of a hawk is in the letter Danny composes to his father. As he is splayed semi-conscious on the asphalt after being beaten by Uno, Danny recalls his last hours with his dad. He says, “You’d spotted a hawk gliding overhead. Your favorite thing in the world” (26). In his father’s absence, anytime Danny sees a hawk flying overhead, as happens frequently, it symbolizes his father, reminding him that his father is with him, watching over him. On a more subconscious level, while Danny is in National City, he has a dream that he’d had when he was younger about a hawk family. In his dream he sees the family, a mother, father and a baby hawk, all in a nest. He falls asleep beneath their tree and when he awakens the hawk family is gone. He recalls feeling a deep sadness inside the dream. The hawk family’s disappearance symbolizes to Danny the breakup of his own family.