Buried Onions

“The students of that ghoulish business had to stand in the sun and quiver until the heat returned to their bodies.”

This quote, referencing the mortuary studies students, functions at once as commentary for the grim reality of day-to-day life in Fresno and, at a metafictional level, the equally grim duty of documenting that world.  

I had a theory about those vapors which were not released by the sun’s heat but by a huge onion buried under the city. This onion made us cry […] I thought about the giant onion, that remarkable bulb of sadness.” 

One of numerous references to the power and stench of onions beneath his feet, this quote provides a sense of Eddie’s strong imagination as well the imaginary onion metaphorically emphasizing sorrow. 

“I had a print of a ship riding the ocean, its sail full, going somewhere. It was fake art…” 

This quotation relates to the water motif that is present throughoutBuried Onions. Eddie often grabs a cold ice water from his fridge and dreams of becoming a good swimmer. He feels bonded with the water at the river. A ship riding the ocean fits in with his later decision to join the Navy,foreshadowing that decision. 

“I sipped my water while studying a red ant that was hauling a white speck, the bread of its living, pinched in its mouth. I chuckled. The ant was earning his keep.” 

The main point of this quote is the implied comparison of humans to insects. Eddie seems to value the idea of earning one’s keep. 

“[Y]ou had to be careful, quick as a rabbit. Once a dude pointed you out in a 7-Eleven parking lot or some filthy gas station, there was no mercy, no time to explain that you were a father or a good son or an altar boy with combed hair.” 

Here, Soto touches upon the deterministic quality of life in Eddie’s Fresno neighborhood—any individualism is instantly trumped by the violence coursing through the community. 

“Respect. That word got more people buried than the word love.”

Here, Angel tells Eddie how much Jesus had respected him. In this small attempt to vicariously flatter Eddie by summoning the memory of Jesus, Angel is trying to guilt Eddie into going after the accused killer of Jesus. Eddie is savvy to the manipulation, and tells the readers that love can be made to work the same way.  

“I said let’s get the dude so Jesus and him can be equal.” 

This ideaof an eye for an eye, said by Angel,doesn’t convince Eddie. He is repeatedly suspect of the motives of those who want him to go after the killer of Jesus. Eddie knows that he could end up being killed or put in jail once he goes down that road. To Eddie, the view that one death might balance another is a false truth. 

“We evolved from the swish of an alligator crawl to standing up like dinosaurs, our claws ready to strike. Dinosaurs, I thought. That’s who we are. Too old to run with gangs and too messed up to get good jobs.” 

The themes of evolution, determinism, and naturalism are represented in this comparison of humans to alligators and dinosaurs. This also ties in at the end of the novel, when Eddie hopes the Navy will teach him to fight like a crocodile, in effect negating any sort of evolutionary benefit—Eddie’s best hope to is devolve.  

“The north side of Fresno is white with a little brown here and a little black there.” 

Here, Eddie is saying that on the north side, Mexicans and blacks are reduced to tokenism. When he has been out and about selling his curb painting and odd jobs service he has always been especially respectful and careful in sizing up potential clients for possible non-acceptance of his brown skin. Eddie feels a bit out of place there and worries about looking professional and being polite, but knows it is also where he can make the most money.

“You can pray and sometimes God listens. Other times he’s far away in India or Africa or maybe close to home in Fresno, his body sprawled on the floor, glass all around because of a drive-by.” 

The fake crosses and ungodly actions in the novel draw intoconsideration attitudes towards God. Eddie’s beliefs aren’t fully clear, but this quote, “sometimes God listens,” shows that he seems to believe in some sort of higher power.

“The early dusk was ribbed with a low-level bank of pinkish clouds. Two future gangster kids were whacking each other with plastic bats, a playful duel in the yard across from me.” 

This depiction illustrates misuse theory—the notion of repurposing tools for something other than what they are intended for. Soto actualizes this theory here to show how engrained violence is in Eddie’s neighborhood. 

“I walked away, sweat cupped in my armpits and my breath wild with some force that could have broken the world in half.” 

When Eddie confronts Yellow Shoes, he surprises himself with his aggressiveness. He doesn’t know what it is, but its power scares him. He starts examining his own situation more earnestly after he nearly starts afight with the possible murderer of Jesus. 

“I boarded a bus and got spooked again when I noticed there were more people getting on than getting off. We were all poor, all going somewhere. But where?” 

This quote echoes Eddie’s refrainabout the hospital, and more people entering than leaving. It also illustrates Eddie’s drifting through his own life, often pulled in directions he seems to have no control over. 

“[Coach] laughed and said it was just smashed chalk from all the teachers who had given up.” 

Soto juxtaposing Coach’s laughter with “smashed” chalk creates contrast and irony. It also shows how far education has eroded in Eddie’s life, and in those around him—the best use for unused teaching tools is to draw lines for a baseball field. 

“Queenie…shivered in my arms, eyes wet from inhaling her own onion.” 

Soto often expands the impact of onions outward, well beyond Eddie and his neighborhood—to the north side, to the rural fields, to a white man’s skin texture, and, here, to a dog’s wet eyes. 

“Raul was a cop, but he had started an anti-gang program that mostly involved getting summer jobs for the homies. I would have loved one of those jobs except I wasn’t bad enough.” 

Eddie has been a responsible person and isn’t known for being a gang member or in need of rescue. As he sees it, it’s because of not being bad that he doesn’t qualify for this program. He would have liked one of these jobs, since he feels they are better than what he can get on his own. He seems to admire Raul starting programs to assist teens but wishes they applied to him and seems to feel they should.

“I ended with, ‘I don’t want to live here no more.’” 

This is Eddie’s turning point. He knows life in Fresno is simply not going to work out, and that he must seek a new path elsewhere. 

“Hunger, I saw, was crawling from one end of the street to the other.” 

Eddie is always watching, observing, thinking about his neighborhood. Hunger is one of the great derailers in life, and hunger is endemic in his neighborhood. The personification of hunger crawling shows its power and dominance in his community. 

“[Coach] knew that we needed fresh air and distance from the little shop of horrors we created for ourselves.” 

This quote speaks to the lack of perspective Eddie has in his life; the trip to the river provides some, and serves a precursor to Eddie’s departure from Fresno. 

“As I lay on the floor, I thought about Jesus’s stabbing. Maybe Angel hadn’t killed him after all. Maybe it was chisme, just something for Norma to say while she kicked her legs in her swimming pool.” 

Eddie’s inability to distinguish truth from gossip illustrates both his own naivete and that even hugely grave events, including murder, are so status quo they can be made into fodder for poolside conversation.  

“I hoped that the Navy could teach me to swim like a dolphin and fight like a crocodile.” 

Eddie, who in the past has feared animals, now finds himself ironically wanting to be like them. Previously, we’ve seen animals as negative: dead squirrels and dead insects, live roaches all over his apartment. Now the dolphin and crocodile mentioned here seem full of life and worthy of emulation. 

“I hurried over the clods, hurried to meet these brothers.” 

Eddie calls the black men in the field “miracles” and seems to see the world anew, realizing that they are brothers with him. They are the same ones that had sold Jose onions days before. 

“I saw my palms bloodied from all the city wars—those in the past, those now, and those to come when every homie would raise a fist to his brother.” 

Eddie understands who he is at last: he is someone who stands against Mexican Americans killing other Mexican Americans. He couldn’t kill Angel and now he knows why. These conflictsare something he now stands against.