I found this to be a frustrating read. I felt like I got to know the people he interviewed, and even if some of the things they did seemed purely evil, I had sympathy for them because I had the opportunity to hear their stories, and understand what brought them to the decisions they made. However, Bourgois's analysis of their experience and his excuse-making for their misdeeds ruined this book for me. Basically, nothing they did could be seen as immoral because it was seen as necessitated by the

I found this to be a frustrating read. I felt like I got to know the people he interviewed, and even if some of the things they did seemed purely evil, I had sympathy for them because I had the opportunity to hear their stories, and understand what brought them to the decisions they made. However, Bourgois's analysis of their experience and his excuse-making for their misdeeds ruined this book for me. Basically, nothing they did could be seen as immoral because it was seen as necessitated by their culture, yet American institutions and non-Puerto Rican Americans were analyzed in very moralistic, judgmental ways. For instance, one man who had already been established as a criminal figure, and who admitted to looking disheveled in a particular situation and acting in a suspicious manner was treated in a "racist" way by a woman who ran away from him in fear. So, we are meant to judge this woman as racist (a very morally-charged term) because she perceived danger and reacted in fear. Furthermore, Bourgois seemed to internalize much of the sexist worldview of his subjects. He consciously tried to reject it when dealing with Puerto Rican-American women, but when it came to the white women discussed, he parroted the views of his subjects, calling them racist for reacting in self-protective ways when left alone with someone who has already been shown to be a criminal, and treating his discussion of successful business women with the same disdain as his subjects do. Finally, I would add that in his excuse-making for actions that even his subjects viewed as immoral through the idea of "culture," Bourgois reduces them below the level of individual people, capable of free will. Certainly, everyone is affected by their environment and culture, but I am certain Bourgois would see himself as capable of making independent decisions, and at times defying his culture if he recognized that the culture demanded him to violate other humans. By making it appear that these people are incapable of doing the same, he reduces them to below the level of the more affluent majority.