James N. Thorp Elementary School
8914 S. Buffalo Avenue
Chicago, IL 60617
(South Shore)
Hugo Martinez-Serros graduated from Thorp in 1944.
Several of Martinez-Serros short stories, including “Her,” “The Birthday Present,” and “Octavo,” likely draw on his experiences at James M. Thorp Elementary School in depicting the elementary school experiences of his youthful characters during the 1930s and 1940s. Their school days are filled with laughter and joyful camaraderie but fraught with the cruelty and humiliation of Mexican students by Anglo teachers, often depicted as women of Irish descent.
Martinez-Serros depicts a boy’s walk to school in “The Birthday Present” that follows the route Martinez-Serros would have taken from the Bush to Thorp. Here, the boy (referred to in the second person) first crosses the intersection where Burley curves east into 87th Street and then follows the alley between Buffalo and Burley to Thorp: “No patrol boy yet. There she comes in her car, Mrs. Flynn. You smile and wave at your teacher. She takes the curve, you smiling and waving still, but she does not wave, does not turn to look at you. You run across the street, into the alley where the street would go if it didn’t make the wide turn. It is your shortcut to the school’s door, you walk very slowly.”
