In Lucky Broken girl by Ruth Behar, the main character Ruthie is a cuban girl that moved with her family to the United States. Ruthie is a non-english speaker, Francisco, the main character of “Inside Out” by Francisco Jiménez, is a non-english speaker too, who moved to the “Tent City”, because of the work of the parents, and like Ruthie he faces challenges with the language. But both are very persistent, however they act in different ways. Like in Lucky Broken girl, it is more obvious that the main character Ruthie has this trait, because she convinced her teacher to go to the smart class, and because she is more extroverted. On the other hand Francisco doesn’t demonstrate, it is not obvious that he has this personality, because he is more shy.
The first similarity is that Francisco and Ruthie are non-english speakers and spanish-speakers. Both faces many challenges with the language, mostly at school, and they are less powerful because of this. For example, Francisco doesn’t understand anything that his teacher Miss Scalapino says, and readers can see this at the moment of the story time, that Francisco makes up his own story based on the images. Another thing is that he only made friends that speak Spanish, because he thinks that it is easier to have a friend who speaks the same language as him. Ruthie faces the same challenges, interact with other childrens, understanding the classes, etc. We can see this in the part that Ruthie enter to the “dumb class”, just because she don’t speak english. She explains her feelings about this, in pages 1 and 2: “Most of the kids know I’m in this class because I’m from another country, not because I really belong there. Or maybe I do belong there? It’s been eight months since school started and our teacher promised I wouldn’t be in the class for long. Im not dumb. I am not dumb. I am not dumb…” During the story Ruthie is evolving and finally going to the “smart class”. So we can observe that both have problems with language, both are non-english speakers and moved to a new country, the United States.
The second similarity is that Ruthie and Francisco are persistent in the story but act in different ways. Ruthie demonstrates this personality and Francisco too, but in Ruthie’s story, readers can read the book and know that she is persistent, because she tries, and tries so hard to get into the smart class, which by that point was your goal in the United States. Francisco has this strong personality too, but readers can just see this in the part where he enters in the classroom, because even with many kids looking at him and laughing, he continues in the school, striving to understand the classes and trying to make friends. Then, we can observe and understand that both act in different ways, even with the same characteristic.
One difference is that Francisco is shy and Ruthie is extroverted. Ruthie has more friends at the beginning of the story, even though she moved to another country with a different language. She talks to everyone and this is very important for her development. Francisco is more shy, talks less and doesn’t have friends. But in the middle of the two stories everything changes. In Ruthie’s story, after the accident, she has no friends anymore, because everyone has forgotten her. On the other hand in Francisco’s story, when Ruthie loses all her friends, he starts to interact with a boy who speaks Spanish, and that interaction makes his recess better (he makes a friend). Even Curtis, who was Francisco’s “enemy”, ended up becoming his friend, just by the simple act of Francisco delivering the drawing to Curtis, thus making peace. Consequently, both, even if they move to a new city and to a new school, even with different personalities, at a moment in the story, they make friends.
In both books, the main characters moved to another country, with a different language and this was very difficult for them. Francisco and Ruhtie find the same way to solve this, to be persistent. But this was not the only difficulty that they passed, another complicated situation was to make friends. This trouble was solved in the end and it was easier for Ruthie, because she is more extroverted, on the other hand for Francisco was more difficult, because he is more shy. We can see that the characters have similarities and differences, so an interesting thing to do while you are reading is to compare and contrast.
