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Growing Up Chicana/o
What Does It Mean To Grow Up Chicana/o?
When I was growing up, I never read anything in school by anyone who had a "Z" in their last name. This anthology is, in many ways, a public gift to that child who was always searching for herself whithin the pages of a book.
from the Introduction by Tiffany Ana Lopez
Louie The Foot Gonzalez tells of an eighty-nine-year-old woman with only one tooth who did strange and magical healings...
Her name was Dona Tona and she was never taken seriously until someone got sick and sent for her. She'd always show up, even if she had to drag herself, and she stayed as long as needed. Dona Tona didn't seem to mind that after she had helped them, they ridiculed her ways.
Rosa Elena Yzquierdo remembers when homemade tortillas and homespun wisdom went hand-in-hand...
As children we watched our abuelas lovingly make tortillas. In my own grandmother's kitchen, it was an opportunity for me to ask questions within the safety of that warm room...and the conversation carried resonance far beyond the kitchen...
Sandra Cisneros remembers growing up in Chicago...
Teachers thought if you were poor and Mexican you didn't have anything to say. Now I know, "We've got to tell our own history...making communication happen between cultures."
When I was growing up, I never read anything in school by anyone who had a "Z" in their last name. This anthology is, in many ways, a public gift to that child who was always searching for herself whithin the pages of a book.
from the Introduction by Tiffany Ana Lopez
Louie The Foot Gonzalez tells of an eighty-nine-year-old woman with only one tooth who did strange and magical healings...
Her name was Dona Tona and she was never taken seriously until someone got sick and sent for her. She'd always show up, even if she had to drag herself, and she stayed as long as needed. Dona Tona didn't seem to mind that after she had helped them, they ridiculed her ways.
Rosa Elena Yzquierdo remembers when homemade tortillas and homespun wisdom went hand-in-hand...
As children we watched our abuelas lovingly make tortillas. In my own grandmother's kitchen, it was an opportunity for me to ask questions within the safety of that warm room...and the conversation carried resonance far beyond the kitchen...
Sandra Cisneros remembers growing up in Chicago...
Teachers thought if you were poor and Mexican you didn't have anything to say. Now I know, "We've got to tell our own history...making communication happen between cultures."
- GenresNonfictionLatinx
272 pages, Paperback
First published November 1, 1993
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506 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews
April 25, 2019
This was difficult to read, but not for the reasons that you may think. After all, this is a collection of short stories from accomplished Latino authors. The difficult lies in that I could identify with many of those short stories and my upbringing mirrored some of those characters' lives. To understand a culture, one must step back and start from the beginning. It was hard to read in one sitting seeing how those stories became mini movies of my childhood. I found myself drifting into my memories to see myself as a child and how I interacted with the world around me.
This is a good read for those trying to understand how the Mexican culture plays a role for first generation Americans. We often feel an invisible gravitational pull to our ancestors while physically being in a culture that does not typically celebrate our history.
I enjoyed reading each author's short story mainly because they all had their own style yet reveal the same message. I can see myself refer back to this book for a variety of reasons,but mainly to revisit old friends. Bravo!
This is a good read for those trying to understand how the Mexican culture plays a role for first generation Americans. We often feel an invisible gravitational pull to our ancestors while physically being in a culture that does not typically celebrate our history.
I enjoyed reading each author's short story mainly because they all had their own style yet reveal the same message. I can see myself refer back to this book for a variety of reasons,but mainly to revisit old friends. Bravo!
March 13, 2020
This is an anthology of short stories by a wide range of Mexican American authors. It’s an older book (25yrs) and the stories are set in the author’s childhoods so anywhere from 1940s - 1960s. I’m not sure much has changed since then in our treatment of Mexican-Americans. I found several of the stories to be sad but many were sweet glimpses of a unique culture that straddles two distinct countries.
May 13, 2017
I very much enjoyed the short stories and the variety of themes and styles. I think these are some stories I will come back to every once in a while when I need a new perspective on life.
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August 2, 2025Team owns Scholarship Jacket, The by Salinas, Marta digitally.
December 20, 2013
Growing up Chicana/o tells the story of Mexican children, who were growing up in poor neighborhoods and had to work hard to support them and their families. The book is set in diffrent places of Mexico because it is multiple short stories of diffrent authors, where they were growing up and their adventures . Running around through their neighborhoods and foresty places like little wild animals, mexican parents would tell scary legends, to their childrens about their neighborhoods so their kids would not run off again. The little mexican kids screaming around their barrio, running around like crazy people, hitting one another with sticks, and killing animals that they would find always came home dirty and telling their parents about what they would find. The book is about mexican kids with their adventures and struggles in life, which makes them try harder so that their lives can be easier as chicana/os.
The most memorable moment that i remember from reading this book is about a little boy that was nicknamed sapito(frog) because he had big bulging eyes. It was the day of the three wise men in Mexico and his grandma that lived in the United States sent him a present and when he opened it it was a ball and a baseball bat but sapito lived in a poor barrio(neighborhood) so he didn't know it was a baseball bat he did not know anything about America. So he though it was an iguana killer because in his barrio the kids would kill iguanas or other animals to eat and sapito was the best iguana killer there was. He was the coolest kid on the block because of his bat he would kill up to four iguanas a day.
Ultimately, the story of growing up with mexican parents, living in their enviorment, remmmbering all of the tales they would tell you when you were a little kid to try to get you to listen by making you scared. It all adds up to a tale of how mexican parents get you to listen and all of the legends that are told all throughout mexico, stories that keep on being passed down from generation to generation. Growing up Chicano tells the story very well, giving us the idea of thw lives of Mexican-American children with their parents, and the stories of their childhood of the scary tales that happened to them or of what they hear.
I recommend this book to anyone that hve heared scary tales or adventures that their parents have had in their childhood. It woul mostly be interesting to Mexican-American kids because they know the perks of livin with mexican parents. If a chicano/a reads this book they will surely like it because they would have so much to connect with just like i did with this book about short stories of diffrent mexican authors and their experiences or stories.
The most memorable moment that i remember from reading this book is about a little boy that was nicknamed sapito(frog) because he had big bulging eyes. It was the day of the three wise men in Mexico and his grandma that lived in the United States sent him a present and when he opened it it was a ball and a baseball bat but sapito lived in a poor barrio(neighborhood) so he didn't know it was a baseball bat he did not know anything about America. So he though it was an iguana killer because in his barrio the kids would kill iguanas or other animals to eat and sapito was the best iguana killer there was. He was the coolest kid on the block because of his bat he would kill up to four iguanas a day.
Ultimately, the story of growing up with mexican parents, living in their enviorment, remmmbering all of the tales they would tell you when you were a little kid to try to get you to listen by making you scared. It all adds up to a tale of how mexican parents get you to listen and all of the legends that are told all throughout mexico, stories that keep on being passed down from generation to generation. Growing up Chicano tells the story very well, giving us the idea of thw lives of Mexican-American children with their parents, and the stories of their childhood of the scary tales that happened to them or of what they hear.
I recommend this book to anyone that hve heared scary tales or adventures that their parents have had in their childhood. It woul mostly be interesting to Mexican-American kids because they know the perks of livin with mexican parents. If a chicano/a reads this book they will surely like it because they would have so much to connect with just like i did with this book about short stories of diffrent mexican authors and their experiences or stories.
July 31, 2008
Read this during my second semester at Ventura College a while back when I took Professor Mayo De La Rocha's Chicano/Raza Studies course.
It is a bunch short stories from many different Chicana/o authors and a whole bunch of them I can relate to as a kid such as an exert from Antonio Villareal book Pocho and Louie The Foot Gonzalez story of Dona Tona a Currandera as well as Sandra Cisneros stories living in Chicago, which was similar to how my cousins were living in the City of Fallen Angels (LA)
I still read and re-read this book I liked the exert from the Circuit Stories from the Life of a Migrant Child by Francisco Jimenez growing up in a rural setting and moving from place to place.
Fortunately my family and I never had to experience the unstable life of a migrant workers, but I have known friends of mine back in Ventura County from Oxnard, Santa Paula, and my hometown Ojai who have lived the lives experienced by Migrant families. These friends whom I've met during the Summers in working in the Citrus orchards of Ojai and Santa Paula as a young teen along with my Jefe, who taught my brother and me the value of an education and how working in the fields and orchards does not have to be our fate unlike the friends I've known working there who were young and bright, but because of their and family's immigration status cannot go to school and by necessity have to work along side their families just to survive.
But by the time I graduated from High School and went to Ventura College two friends from those days Victor Celaya and Elias Portero against all odds had made to College and I believe Elias went off to Cal Poly San Luis Obispo to study agricultural science and now has has a managerial position in Magana's Citrus picking and packing in Santa Paula, but Victor I have no idea what happened to him but I heard he went to join the Army and later went up north possibly to Chico State or Humboldt State to study business or accounting I don't remember anymore, because I haven't seen either of them for nearly four years.
Going back this book reminds me despite all the struggles the stories these Chicana/o are a testament despite the author s's successes they still remain true to their humble origins. Hopefully once I make my delayed career I too along with my brother can make our family proud and show them that their sacrifices were not in vain.
It is a bunch short stories from many different Chicana/o authors and a whole bunch of them I can relate to as a kid such as an exert from Antonio Villareal book Pocho and Louie The Foot Gonzalez story of Dona Tona a Currandera as well as Sandra Cisneros stories living in Chicago, which was similar to how my cousins were living in the City of Fallen Angels (LA)
I still read and re-read this book I liked the exert from the Circuit Stories from the Life of a Migrant Child by Francisco Jimenez growing up in a rural setting and moving from place to place.
Fortunately my family and I never had to experience the unstable life of a migrant workers, but I have known friends of mine back in Ventura County from Oxnard, Santa Paula, and my hometown Ojai who have lived the lives experienced by Migrant families. These friends whom I've met during the Summers in working in the Citrus orchards of Ojai and Santa Paula as a young teen along with my Jefe, who taught my brother and me the value of an education and how working in the fields and orchards does not have to be our fate unlike the friends I've known working there who were young and bright, but because of their and family's immigration status cannot go to school and by necessity have to work along side their families just to survive.
But by the time I graduated from High School and went to Ventura College two friends from those days Victor Celaya and Elias Portero against all odds had made to College and I believe Elias went off to Cal Poly San Luis Obispo to study agricultural science and now has has a managerial position in Magana's Citrus picking and packing in Santa Paula, but Victor I have no idea what happened to him but I heard he went to join the Army and later went up north possibly to Chico State or Humboldt State to study business or accounting I don't remember anymore, because I haven't seen either of them for nearly four years.
Going back this book reminds me despite all the struggles the stories these Chicana/o are a testament despite the author s's successes they still remain true to their humble origins. Hopefully once I make my delayed career I too along with my brother can make our family proud and show them that their sacrifices were not in vain.
Read
November 9, 2010the author has collected stories from young kids about grow up Chicana/o in the US. Also belong to a ethnic group whose culture and history was ignored by mainstream Americans. The book American expands the culture and illustrate the great diversity of Chicano life.
These stories in an intense and emotional search for identity and the meaning of community. one of the stories “Eleven” by Sandra Cisneros, a schoolgirl maintains her dignity despite a teacher’s insensitive claim. Thelma Reyna describes the pain of becoming a child of divorce an era when divorce was considered scandalous, and she examines the father/daughter relationship in “Una Edad Muy Tierna, M’ija.”
Gary Soto describes a boy’s sudden freedom and subsequent encounters in his autobiographical story “The Bike.”
In “The McCoy Hotel,” Denise Chavez creates a symbolic place where she explores the bonds between a single mother of three and her grown daughters.
Its a touching book because there was many real life struggles that many kids had to face living in a very different society. The book was rateable on many different aspects. I would recomend this book to people of the same background or even people that cant grasp the concept of being unlike everyone else's live style.
These stories in an intense and emotional search for identity and the meaning of community. one of the stories “Eleven” by Sandra Cisneros, a schoolgirl maintains her dignity despite a teacher’s insensitive claim. Thelma Reyna describes the pain of becoming a child of divorce an era when divorce was considered scandalous, and she examines the father/daughter relationship in “Una Edad Muy Tierna, M’ija.”
Gary Soto describes a boy’s sudden freedom and subsequent encounters in his autobiographical story “The Bike.”
In “The McCoy Hotel,” Denise Chavez creates a symbolic place where she explores the bonds between a single mother of three and her grown daughters.
Its a touching book because there was many real life struggles that many kids had to face living in a very different society. The book was rateable on many different aspects. I would recomend this book to people of the same background or even people that cant grasp the concept of being unlike everyone else's live style.
May 19, 2014
Childhood stories by various Chicano/a authors including Sandra Cisneros, Gary Soto, Denise Chavez and others. Rudolfo Anaya wrote the foreward reminding readers that Hispanics have been left out of the history books and even our poems, stories and songs have not been shared with the greater community.
These stories speak to our experience.
These stories speak to our experience.
July 5, 2019
This is an anthology of short stories of the Chicano culture in America. I loved it very much. So many characters and themes that I could relate to in this narrative. I could probably write a few stories of this ilk myself. And most likely I will someday.
Enough said. I'm sure I will read this book again. Or a similar one.
Enough said. I'm sure I will read this book again. Or a similar one.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
December 5, 2013
I love her intro. I too felt the same way growing up... stories that we were told are like whispers... because they are oral stories not written, we have to be vigilant about writing them.. to continue the story...this book is about doing just that...
July 17, 2013
Great stories to remind you growing up in Chicano world
January 18, 2017
A great collection and introduction to the many themes of Chicanx literature. I loved most of the pieces in here.
Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews