Pocho by Jose Antonio Villarreal Essay -- Mexican Culture Catholicism

Pocho by Jose Antonio VillarrealThe 1959 novel, Pocho, by Jos Antonio Villarreal is an insightful cultural expo told primarily from the vantage point of Richard Rubio, the coming-of-age son of immigrant Mexican parents who eventually fall off in Santa Clara, California, after many an(prenominal) seasons of migrant farm work. Although fiction, the story potential mirrors some of the experiences of the write who was born to migrant laborers in Los Angeles in 1924 and was himself a pocho - a child of the depression era Mexican-American transition. (I am a Pocho, he said, and we speak like this because here in California we excite Castilian words out of English words. p 165)Such a move around was a difficult unity and only(a) (...for the transition from the culture of the old human to that of the new world should never have been attempted in one generation. p 135), and Villarreal nicely employs a cross cultural bildungsroman to explore a diversity of related themes.Among the mos t prominent are strains of racism/classism, be and dislocation, death and meaning and self-identity, and sexual awakening. In a slim 187 pages the author competently weaves social commentary (via the seemingly innocent adolescent perspective) into a moving narrative that only occasionally veers toward the pedantic.Richards father, Juan Rubio, is proud to be a Mexican and resents the Spanish people, whom he identifies as oppressors (although Juan is clearly of Spanish gloaming since he had fair skin and blue-gray eyes - p 1). He explains to his son, who exclaims in response to his fathers prejudice, But all your friends are Spanish (p 99)That is all on that point is here, said Juan Rubio, but these people are different - they are besides from the lower class... ...s parents. Second, one should not, on penalty of going to Hell, discuss morality with the priests. And, last, one should not ask questions on history of the teachers, or one will be kept in after school, he said. I do not find it in me to understand why it is this way. (p 85, 86) generator Jos Antonio Villarreal has a dry sense of humor and, as mentioned above, does a wonderful job weaving bits of wry commentary throughout the novel. Another athletics quote is when Richards sister, Luz, demonstrates her own prejudice for the newly arrived, and darker skinned, Mexicans Well, they aint got nuthin and they dont even talk hot English. (p 148) Now, 50 years after the novel was first written, the story is tranquillize relevant. Its an intriguing narrative and helpful in capturing the double consciousness that many Mexican-Americans lived with as a matter of course.