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Paperback Barrio Boy: 40th Anniversary Edition Book

ISBN: 0268029792

ISBN13: 9780268029791

Barrio Boy

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Format: Hardcover

Condition: Very Good

$5.39
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List Price $36.00
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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 of time and place, Ernesto Galarza gives an account of the early experiences of his extraordinary life--from revolution in Mexico to segregation in the United States--that will continue to engage readers for generations to come.

Since it was first published in 1971, Galarza's classic work has been assigned in high school and undergraduate classrooms across the country, profoundly affecting thousands of students who read this true story of acculturation into American life.

The 40th anniversary edition of this best-selling book includes a new text design and cover, as well an introduction by Ilan Stavans, the distinguished cultural critic and editor of the Norton Anthology of Latino Literature, which places Barrio Boy and Ernesto Galarza in historical context.

Customer Reviews

136 customer ratings | 5 reviews

Rated 5 stars
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"...

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Rated 5 stars
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...

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Rated 5 stars
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...

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Rated 5 stars
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.

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Rated 4 stars
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.

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