All people belonging to one racial group identify with each other unequivocally: True or false. Consciously, each individual would answer false however subconsciously we live by a “true” mentality everyday. This perspective was ultimately challenged in our short story reading of “Campo” by Manuel Munoz. Campo is about a young farm worker running a labor camp as he attempts to hide the labor children from the town. Conflicts such as the pain of loss and the feel of loneliness is shown when another young man is introduced. When we began discussing the reading as a group, we thought that this particular story had two different conventions that we wanted to focus on. The epiphanic moments and the many central (unresolved) crises. With further discussion we realized that although the central (unresolved) was in fact a big part of the piece, the epiphanic “ah ha” moment seemed to be more compelling.

The excerpt we began to focus on was on the last page, “Next to him, the boy from yesterday stand so near now that he can smell his cooper scent, and when the green eyes look at him, he does not want to know any longer what it is like to be so close to things” (Munoz 12). We had not truly understood the meaning behind this line initially, but noted it within the text as an epiphanic moment just by the language used in its description, words like “does not”, “any longer” and “when the green eyes look at him”. Although initially we did not understand the significance of this piece we understood there was more in this sentence to unpack. This is the feeling of loneliness as the young boy realizes the connection he had with the other young boy is being taken away from him and he never again wants to feel that same connection because it will become a loss.

Moments that led up to the epiphanic moments we discovered were the small glimpses of interest and connection Munoz plants throughout the piece. Munoz introduces both characters having the same name, “boy” and goes on to characterize them almost identically; as mirror characters. After their encounter by the park, the laborer boy “can only picture the young man at the park….[a]nd when he tried to sleep, it was again…” (pg.7). There seemed to be a connection between the boys that kept one of them up at night, unable to sleep, closing his eyes to only see an image of the worker boy staring back at him. Originally we believed this could be sexual but because of its indirect language we kept reading. This took us back to the end of the reading. This time instead of focusing on the entire sentence, we zoomed in only dissecting “when the green eyes look at him, he does not want to know any longer what it is like to be so close to things” (Munoz 12). Here we identified the shift, “he does not want to know any longer”, we realized on page 7 the laborer boy was kept awake at night by his curiosity of the boy who seemed to look like him yet now his countenance had changed. Also we noted the significance in Munoz describing the color of the boys eyes, as if the boys were examining each other souls. Looking beyond their exterior connection searching below the surface for something deeper; understanding.

Through both the class discussion and our own group discussion that although both boys were almost identical in characteristics and even named the same in the piece their knowledge of one another polarized them. In the end the laborer boy wants nothing to do with the worker boy because he feels despite they’re outward distinction their inner thoughts are in no way the same. This served as an epiphanic moment for the readers as well as the characters because to the reader the boys are the same, so to us our immediate thought is ‘of course they understand each other’. It is no different from the way our society considers racial stereotypes as an accurate narrative for individuals, Munoz challenges that perspective completely, and forces the reader to see the boys as individuals.