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Perfecto Flores
Estrella’s love interest, a teenager from Texas working in the fields for the summer. Alejo first catches sight of Estrella while illicitly picking peaches from the orchards and becomes entranced by her and her family. Like Estrella, Alejo is born into an impoverished and disadvantaged Latino family; since his mother has died and his father left the family, he lives with his grandmother, who works several difficult jobs in order to keep him in school. However, because his family are not migrant laborers, he’s lived in one place his entire life and been able to attend school regularly. Bolstered by these slight advantages, Alejo has hopes and dreams which haven’t occurred to Estrella – he plans to attend high school and college, and he encourages her to think about these things as well. Alejo’s sense of potential and agency contrasts starkly with Petra’s passive acceptance of her lot in life and exclusion from mainstream society. Despite his optimism, Alejo is seriously injured after getting caught in a pesticide spray and becomes reliant on Estrella and Petra for care; by the end of the novel, his condition has deteriorated so much that they are forced to leave him at the hospital, not knowing if he will live or die. Alejo’s bleak illness and uncertain future demonstrate how difficult it is even for the most motivated individuals to singlehandedly overcome the obstacles posed by social injustice.
Alejo Quotes in Under the Feet of Jesus
The Under the Feet of Jesus quotes below are all either spoken by Alejo or refer to Alejo. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
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Chapter Two
Quotes
He thought first of his feet sinking, sinking to his knee joints…black bubbles erasing him. Finally the eyes. Blackness. Thousands of bones, the bleached white marrow of bones. Splintered bone pieced together by wire to make a whole, surfaced bone. No fingerprint or history, bone. No lava stone. No story or family, bone.
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Chapter Three
Quotes
She thought of the young girl that Alejo had told her about, the one girl they found in the La Brea Tar Pits. They found her in a few bones. No details of her life were left behind, no piece of cloth, no ring, no doll. A few bits of bone displayed somewhere under a glass case and nothing else.
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Chapter Four
Quotes
But the tire resisted, Alejo’s body resisted, and she did not want to think what she was thinking now: God was mean and did not care and she was alone to fend for herself…All she wanted was to find a deep, dark quiet space like the barn to cry. That was due her. She deserved it.
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Alejo Quotes in Under the Feet of Jesus
The Under the Feet of Jesus quotes below are all either spoken by Alejo or refer to Alejo. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
).
Chapter Two
Quotes
He thought first of his feet sinking, sinking to his knee joints…black bubbles erasing him. Finally the eyes. Blackness. Thousands of bones, the bleached white marrow of bones. Splintered bone pieced together by wire to make a whole, surfaced bone. No fingerprint or history, bone. No lava stone. No story or family, bone.
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Chapter Three
Quotes
She thought of the young girl that Alejo had told her about, the one girl they found in the La Brea Tar Pits. They found her in a few bones. No details of her life were left behind, no piece of cloth, no ring, no doll. A few bits of bone displayed somewhere under a glass case and nothing else.
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Chapter Four
Quotes
But the tire resisted, Alejo’s body resisted, and she did not want to think what she was thinking now: God was mean and did not care and she was alone to fend for herself…All she wanted was to find a deep, dark quiet space like the barn to cry. That was due her. She deserved it.
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