Tragedy of Immigrants at Cariboo Café in ViramontesHelena Maria Viramontes grew up in Los Angeles where relatives used to stay and live with her family during the transition from Mexico to the United States. It was there that she got her first glimpse of life for immigrants in this country, in the urban neighborhoods. Viramontes' writings reflect this theme while expressing his political views on the treatment of immigrants, particularly Chicanos and Latinos. In his short story “The Cariboo Café,” Viramontes brings these ideas to life through three sections narrated by different people connected to the story. “The Cariboo Café” is the story of Chicano immigrants and a Central American refugee. Alongside these characters is the owner of the Cariboo Café, who comes into contact with the others. The story unfolds in three short sections. Each section involves a different storyline and is told from the perspective of a different narrator. The three distinct settings are not fully brought together until the end of the last section. This approach makes the story initially very complicated to understand and difficult to connect the sections into a coherent flow of events. However, it is possible that this was Viramontes' intention. Perhaps the situations presented in the story were the ones that caused so much confusion and frustration in real life for those who experienced them. Perhaps Viramontes needed to convey in his story that what really happened in the urban neighborhoods of Los Angeles never really made sense to anyone. The first part of this story is a third person narrative. The narrator immediately introduces a poor Chicano family with two young children. Some initial facts the reader picks up on in the first paragraph are that both parents have to work, that the children often play alone in rear ally's and carry their own keys, and that the father has warned the children to always avoid the police.Viramontes sets a disconcerting tone by announcing that it is night and that Sonya, the young girl, has lost her key and cannot let her younger brother Macky and herself into their apartment. The first few paragraphs succeed in showing that Sonya is responsible and protective of her brother despite his age as she pursues him to keep him off the streets..