Ernesto Galarza’s Barrio Boy

By Jjaramillo @johnpjaramillo

Reading Galarza’s book Barrio Boy I was amazed at the brilliant memoir of Galarza’s boyhood experience of the Mexican Revolution and segregation in American neighborhoods. I was interested to find a different definition of the term chicano and also I was interested to read about the struggle for work and how that struggle for work drove the family to head north to Sacramento, California. I delighted in the entirety of the literacy narrative and Galarza’s attention to detail and description of his boyhood village and the American colonia he later lived in with his family. I hope to add this book to my proposed Latino Lit course for the Spring 2013 term.