Barrio Boy: 40th Anniversary Edition

by Ernesto Galarza

Book Overview

Journey with Ernesto Galarza through time, place, and culture in this stunning memoir of Mexican American identity and acculturation.

Barrio Boy is the remarkable story of one boy's journey from a Mexican village so small its main street didn't have a name, to the barrio of Sacramento, California, bustling and thriving in the early decades of the twentieth century. With vivid imagery and a rare gift for re-creating a child's sense...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0268029792
• ISBN13: 9780268029791
• Release Date: February 2011
• Publisher: University of Notre Dame Press
• Length: 336 Pages
• Weight: 1.09 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.9" x 5.5" x 8.4"

Customer Reviews

Not the stereotypical story

This fascinating, wonderfully told book's title is misleading if it makes you expect the story of a simple Mexican peasant boy with a chicken or two and short horizons. This kid's "barrio" turned out to be a very large part of the world, and the man he became was a man of vision. For me the book was a great reminder that like everyone else's, every immigrant's life is unique in its way, and that "Mexico" and "Mexican-American" can mean many different things. It was also a chance for me to make up for my lifelong, woeful, Anglo-American ignorance of the richness of Mexican history, life, and culture and how changeable the US has been over the decades in how little or much it cared to look out from the Mexican people who've been part of our western state economies since long before there WERE western states! This book is also the beautiful portrait of a young, smart, determined mother, her two devoted brothers and how they basically all died in the course of giving a young boy, Ernesto, a more promising lease on life. This is a great book for older children and any adult who wants to understand the Mexican-American connection. Nutty to Meet You! Dr. Peanut Book #1Take Me With You When You Go

Touching Mexico

I came on this book by chance and read it in two sittings. As a North American who has lived in Mexico for four years, I found myself connecting with something on every page about Ernesto Galarza's life in Western Mexico until he was six and then following him until he was a teenager in Sacramento. After reading how the Mexican Revolution affected his family's decisions, I want to read more about Mexican history of the period. The book is notable for Galarza's ear and eye as he paints the details of village life, the series of moves in Mexico, and the many decisions the Galarza family made as they moved step by step away from physical danger. The last parts of the book about life in a Sacramento barrio interested me less but still kept me reading. When I closed the book I went on the internet to learn more about Galarza. I found out he became a leading organizer and scholar constantly involved in Hispanic life but his book would be memorable even if he had led a more commonplace adult life. On a lighter note, his account of appearing as a first-grader in a Cinco de Mayo performance was so vivid I didn't know whether to laugh or cry. Readers who were bored by this book may have been assigned to read it in school. I think Barrio Boy would be an excellent read before going to Mexico--it's a pageturner that can deepen the Mexican experience for the imaginative traveler.

Touching Mexico

I came on this book by chance and read it in two sittings. As a North American who has lived in Mexico for four years, I found myself connecting with something on every page about Ernesto Galarza's life in Western Mexico until he was six and then following him until he was a teenager in Sacramento. After reading how the Mexican Revolution affected his family's decisions, I want to read more about Mexican history of the period. The book is notable for Galarza's ear and eye as he paints the details of village life, the series of moves in Mexico, and the many decisions the Galarza family made as they moved step by step away from physical danger. The last parts of the book about life in a Sacramento barrio interested me less but still kept me reading. When I closed the book I went on the internet to learn more about Galarza. I found out he became a leading organizer and scholar constantly involved in Hispanic life but his book would be memorable even if he had led a more commonplace adult life. On a lighter note, his account of appearing as a first-grader in a Cinco de Mayo performance was so vivid I didn't know whether to laugh or cry. Readers who were bored by this book may have been assigned to read it in school. I think Barrio Boy would be an excellent read before before going to Mexico--it's a pageturner that can deepen the Mexican experience for the imaginative traveler.

Authentic Immigrant Story

This is one of the most capturing stories I have read of an immigrant coming to the U.S. It was like hearing the stories told time and time again by my parents and grandparents. I have read it twice, once in high school and again in college. Both times Ernesto Galarza was able to draw me into his journey and allowed me to travel along side him, while experiencing a tremendous journey made by thousands.

An Historical Document

"Barrio Boy" is an important historical document, as it presents through various aspects of local color the Mexican community as it appeared in the early twentieth century. It is also important as a chronicle of the Diaz dictatorship and of the forces that made a family, against bitter odds, migrate to southwestern California.