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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.
"To re-encounter Barrio Boy by Ernesto Galarza is to indulge in deja vu from the early Chicano Movement concerns about acculturation and identity construction. The genuine story about a boy's journey reminds many of us of our own trajectory and how we had to negotiate a new ethnic self. The lessons are moving and heart-warming as markers of a collective perseverance and survival. The story embodies a key phase of immigration when the barrio becomes our first community to embrace or overcome. After all is said and done, the 'barrio boy' stays true to himself as an apprentice to Americanism without sacrificing his origins. He proves that being bicultural and bilingual are positive qualities worthy of upholding." —Francisco A. Lomeli, University of California, Santa Barbara
Born in Jalcocotán, Nayarit, Mexico, Ernesto Galarza (1905–1984) was a civil rights and labor activist, a scholar, and a pioneer during the decades when Mexican Americans had few public advocates. When he was eight, he migrated to Sacramento, California, where he worked as a farm laborer. One of Stanford's first Chicano alumni, Galarza received an M.A. in 1929, and a Ph.D. in history from Columbia University in 1944. He returned to California where, during the 1950s, he joined the effort to create the first multiracial farm worker union, which set the foundation for the emergence of the United Farm Workers Union of the 1960s.
His books most notably include the 1964 Merchants of Labor, on the exploitation of Mexican contract workers, and the 1971 Barrio Boy. In 1979, Dr. Galarza was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature.
Introduction
Part 1. In a Mountain Village
Part 2. Peregrinations
Part 3. North From Mexico
Part 4. Life in the Lower Part of Town
Part 5. On the Edge of the Barrio
Glossary