We view the story "Mericans" through a grandchild's perspective in Mexico. She was not born in Mexico however, as we find out from the grandmother as she prays for "the grandchildren born in that barbaric country with its barbarian ways", and when tourists talk to the narrator's brother Junior and are surprised that he speaks English and he then explains that they he is "Merican". This is significant to the story because it shows that the children might be a new generation who were born in America. The grandmother does not pray for her children born in the barbaric country,(America) but for her grandchildren. This shows that they are the first of the family to be born in America. The surprise that the tourists have at children in Mexico being able to speak English also tells the setting and time of the story. Not only is it new for the grandmother to have grandchildren born in America, but it is also new for Americans, or English speaking people to see hispanic children from their country.
The reader can tell the grandmother's religion is Catholicism. She prays with a rosary, and kneels before La Virgen de Guadelupe who is "on the main altar because she's a big miracle" while the crucifix is "on a side altar because that's a little miracle". The narrator has a negative and child-like view of her grandmother's religious ways. She uses negative descriptive words such as "awful", " heavy", and "dusty" to describe the inside of the church. When the grandmother is before the altar to La Divina Providencia the narrator describes her prayers as "Mumbling, mumbling,mumbling." inferring that the narrator is either to young to understand what her grandmother is doing, or sees her grandmother's actions as foolery. She asks child-like question such as "Why do churches smell like the inside of an ear?" and makes observations and imaginations that a child would make like winking at the saints to which her grandmother prays to and then becoming bored and beginning to count her grandmother's mustache hairs.
