Eddie Character Analysis

Eddie, a Dominican-American middle-schooler, is the ringleader of the bullies who target Jerome Rogers. Along with his friends Mike and Snap, he often insults Jerome verbally as well as beating him up. Though fluent in both English and Spanish, Eddie thinks it’s uncool to speak Spanish outside the home and tries to talk inaudibly with his mother in Spanish when she visits the school on Parent Night. When a new kid, Carlos, moves to their school from San Antonio, Texas, Eddie rejects the attempts of well-meaning, obtuse teacher Mr. Myers to create common ground between the two kids as Spanish-speakers by denying that he speaks “Texas Spanish.” Eddie, Mike, and Snap attempts to beat Carlos and Jerome up in the bathroom during lunch the day that Carlos arrives; when Carlos scares them off by pretending that his toy gun is a real firearm, Eddie is the only bully to wonder how Carlos got a gun through the school’s metal detectors, revealing his intelligence. After Jerome is killed by a white police officer, Officer Moore, who also mistakes the toy gun that Carlos has lent Jerome for a real firearm, Eddie publicly reconciles with Carlos at school, loudly stating (in Spanish) his respect for Carlos’s decision to take care of Jerome’s little sister Kim, offering Kim condolences, and walking Kim to class with Carlos, Mike, and Snap. Eddie’s development shows that school bullies are not fundamentally bad people but adolescents capable of growth and change.