Zoo Island

           The story Zoo Island by Tomas Rivera, was about a boy who woke up one morning and wanted to take the census of the farm where he lived. Everyone who lived on the farm lived in a chicken coop. The people from town would drive by their homes  and mock them.  They would even try to look inside their coops. Jose the main character, wanted to take a census count to see how many people lived on the farm compared to how many people lived in the town. " 'See here in that little town where we buy our food there's only eighty-three souls, and you know what? They have a church, a dance hall, a filling station, a grocery store and even a little school. Here, we're more than eighty-three, I'll bet, and we don't have any of that. Why, we only have a water pump and four outhouses, right?' " said one of the citizens that lived on the Farm. Jose wanted to take the count so that maybe they could feel important too. "And every morning Jose would no sooner get up than he would go see the sign. He was part of that number, he was in Zoo Island, in Iowa, and like Don Simon said, in the world. He didn't know why, but there was a warm feeling that started in his feet and rose up through his body until he felt it in his throat and in all his senses. Then this same feeling made him talk, made him open his mouth." that was what some of the people thought of the census. They finally thought that they were something in the world. When Jose and his friends were taking the census one of the citizens thought it was great having people asking you questions and asking your name.



         Why did Jose do the population count? In the very beginning of the story, it said "Jose had just turned fifteen when he woke up one day with a great desire of taking a census count, of making a town and making everybody in it do what he said." Ok, so Jose probably wanted to make the Census count because he wanted to show that his farm could be like a town like everyone else. Maybe if he did this the people from the town that they buy food from wouldn't point fingers and would think of them as people from a town like them. Maybe they would think of them as one of them, and wouldn't find it so entertaining to see how they lived in their coops. Everyone in the town had probably gotten laughed at once or twice and at that point they wanted to feel important. In the end of the book he was so pleased with his sign that had the population and the pictures of the citizens he would shout and go to see it everyday.

by: Emily