Review: Pig Park

I confess. I'm a glutton. This book had me at the cover. That image of a delicious marranito? I can imagine the moist cake-like center, the smell of molasses. I love this cover. I want to eat this cover. 

Between those yummy covers is an equally delicious book. Pig Park (Cinco Puntos Press, 2014) is Claudia Guadalupe Martinez's second novel following her 2011 debut, The Smell of Old Lady Perfume, also published by Cinco Puntos. Masi Burciaga's Chicago neighborhood has become a virtual ghost town since the American Lard Company packed up and moved its business overseas. The lard company was such a central part of the area's economy and livelihood that the neighborhood park got the name Pig Park because of it. When Jorge Peregrino, the one person in the neighborhood who seems to still be doing well for himself, comes to the people of Pig Park with what sounds like a far-out idea to keep the neighborhood alive--building a pyramid that will attract tourist--Masi and her friend jump on board to help. Masi figures even if they can't save the neighborhood she can at least spend her last summer outdoors hanging out with her friends instead of working in the stifling heat of her family's bakery. 

I admit, at first I was like huh? Wait, what's going on here? How is no one skeptical of this pyramid idea? What are you Pig Park people doing?! But everything falls into place as you read your way through Masi's story. As the plan unfolds the reader can't help asking a number of timely and relevant questions. What causes neighborhoods to decline? How can declining neighborhoods be revitalized? What happens to local economies when large companies move overseas? Early in the novel the story of "The Devil and Daniel Webster" is referenced, and the novel tackles that age-old question of how far, how much, what exactly would you do for something that matters to you? The Pig Park residents are faced with two significant issues. How far are they willing to go to save their home, and how important is it to maintain the cultural integrity of their neighborhood?

But it's not all about the struggle to revive a neighborhood. An attractive and mysterious young college student blows into town to help the residents with their revitalization plans, and Masi can't help being drawn to him. On the home front, Masi struggles to understand the growing tension in the relationship between her parents. This storyline ties in nicely with the neighborhood revitalization plot as it also addresses the importance of being able to change and evolve in order to survive.

This would be a great book to tie in with social studies units on neighborhood studies, learning about how outsourcing affects cities, and community activism. I love Claudia's use of simile and especially enjoyed the very detailed scene in which a few of the teens make capirotada. Mmm mmm. 

Bless Me, Ultima

I had so much to write about Rudolfo Anaya's Bless Me, Ultima. Really! Just take a look at my copy that is not only long overdue (eep!) but is covered in those little sticky tabs and dog-eared where I didn't have sticky tabs handy. Unfortunately, it's taken me some time to get around to writing this entry so a lot of what I wanted to say has slipped my mind. That happens to me sometimes. I'd never read this classic of Chicano literature but the fact that we are both celebrating the same birthday this year (does that make me a classic too?) and its place on the lengthy list of books that were part of the now defunct Mexican American Studies curriculum in Arizona prompted me to pick up finally pick up a copy. It did not disappoint. And again, I was left wondering why none of my honor and AP English teachers ever introduced me to this book.

Bless Me, Ultima is the coming-of-age story of Antonio Marez, a young New Mexican boy. The story is set at the end of World War II and spans about three years of the child's life beginning with the arrival of Ultima, the well-known curandera and family friend who movies in with Antonio's family. While the story is primarily Antonio's, the boy's coming-of-age is also symbolic of, in a sense, the transitions his own family and surroundings are going through. Ultima's arrival poses the potential for upheaval in the family structure, but in reality, she serves as the anchor and the last link to a past--a culture and a way of life--that is quickly changing.

The story is told from Antonio's point of view, a child between the ages of about seven to about ten, and yet the it feels like it could be a teenager or even an adult. His struggles and fears have the potential to resonate with all because they are so typically human, those enduring issues that make up life no matter what your age--faith, good versus evil, change. Antonio reminds me of what it was like to be a child so full of questions and wonder and fear. We witness the experience of being a Mexican American child, not able to speak English, in a classroom of White children.

"At noon we opened our lunches to eat. Miss Maestas left the room and a high school girl came and sat at the desk while we ate. My mother had packed a small jar of hot beans and some good, green chile wrapped in tortillas. When the other children saw my lunch they laughed and pointed again. Even the high school girl laughed. They showed me their sandwiches which were made of bread. Again I did not feel well."

And at the end of his first school day:

"The pain and sadness seemed to spread to my soul, and I felt for the first time what the grown-ups call, la tristesa de la vida. I wanted to run away, to hid, to run and never come back, never see anyone again."

But along with this sadness we also see the comfort of family and community:

"We always enjoyed our stay at El Puerto. It was a world where people were happy, working, helping each other. The ripeness of the harvest piled around the mud houses and lent life and color to the songs of the women. Green chile was roasted and dried, and red chile was tied into colorful ristras. Apples piled high, some lent their aroma to the air from where they dried in th sun on the lean-to roofs and others as they bubbled into jellies and jams. At night we sat around the fireplace and ate baked apples spiced with sugar and cinnamon and listened to the cuentos, the old stories of the people."

Bless Me, Ultima was National Endowment for the Arts Big Read selection, an honor that recognizes its deserved place in American literature. Despite being focusing on a very specific community, it tells the story of the kinds of changes people throughout the country were experiencing--the effects of war on family, the loss of old ways to new ways. Here we see these changes from the eyes of a child who is also dealing with growing up. I think about this book in the context of its subject matter and the time in which it was published, and I feel grateful that it has endured.

Crossing the Line (Border Town Series)

In an interview with NPR, Malin Alegria described her new teen series, Border Town, as being like Sweet Valley High, "but with brown kids." Depending on your view of Sweet Valley High and other books in that particular genre, one might be a little hesitant to get excited. Formulaic plots? Cheesy writing? Kinda lame high school drama? One dimensional characters? Ehhh. Do we really need more of that? The teen romance series has gone of the way of the dinosaur for a reason, yes? 

Fortunately, there's a lot to like about Crossing the Line. The protagonist, Fabiola Garza, isn't your typical teen series character. She's not one of the cool kids. She's kind of awkward, but isn't bothered by fact that she doesn't really fit in with any particular group at school. She actually, gasp, seems pretty content with who she is! After describing the many cliques that exist at school to her younger sister Alexis, who is about to start high school, Alexis asks Fabi the loaded high school question: "What are you?" To which Fabi responds: "I guess I'm normal." Nothing wrong with that!

Throughout the novel Fabi contends with her younger sister's growing popularity as she finds a place for herself among the popular kids, a mean girl bully, and the mysterious attacks on undocumented workers, including one of the employees at her family's restaurant. Is there romance? There is a boy, but for now they're just friends. Which is a refreshing change from so many books and movies for teens where the existence of a romance seems to be a requirement.

Crossing the Line has its moments of teen angst in the form of conflict between Fabi and her younger sister who is in love with a popular football player, and Fabi's occasional bullying at the hands of Melodee. But it is also full of humor as seen in the funny opening scene in which Fabi attempts to by a box of tampons on the down-low, but realizes it's a nearly impossible feat in a town where everyone knows everyone. Lest we think it's all fun and games, the storyline in which a group of teens is attacking and robbing undocumented workers sheds light on the anti-immigrant sentiments currently seen around the country.

Unlike the Sweet Valley High books, the story lines aren't flat, the characters are multi-dimensional, and conflicts don't come off feeling contrived and formulaic. The only character who seems to be a sort of stereotype and perhaps around for the sake of additional conflict is Melodee, the popular (white?) girl who once dated the football player Alexis is interested in and who bullies Fabi. I also have a bit of an issue with the cover featuring two very similar-looking thin girls since the description in the book of the sisters is one of opposites. Alexis is described as having "light-colored skin and petite figure" while Fabi has "strong indigenous features and thick frame." Hmmm. The issue of misrepresentation in book covers is an ongoing one.

I'm curious about the fresas, the rich kids from Mexico. Is there conflict between Mexican-American kids and fresas? I would also be interested in knowing what kind of reception this (and the rest of the series) gets from teens who live in border towns. The text is peppered with Spanish words, but no worries, the terms are explained in a "Tex-Mex for Beginners" glossary at the end of the book.

This would make a great summer read. The next book in the series is due out in early July. Can't wait!

An Island Like You: Stories of the Barrio

An Island Like You: Stories of the Barrio by Judith Ortiz Cofer. New York: Puffin Books, 1995.

It seems fitting that the first Pura Belpre Award winner in the narrative category is by Judith Ortiz Cofer who, like Belpre, is a native of Puerto Rico. Cofer came to the United States at a young age and, like the characters in the stories that make up An Island Like You, grew up in Paterson, New Jersey. This collection of stories features Puerto Rican-American teens growing up teetering that all-too-familiar line between cultures. In addition to the cultural divide between the children and their parents, socio-economic and racial divisions, provide conflict throughout the stories. 

While twelve separate short stories, characters reappear throughout giving each distinct person an opportunity to share his or her voice. Each character is a study in adolescence with all its complexities and its ups and downs. The reviled bully of one story becomes the heartbreaking hero of another. The bad girl who draws little sympathy in one story mourns her father in another. Cofer created multidimensional characters that are more than just one thing or another. Weaving them throughout each other’s stories allows the reader to see them in different lights, to understand how they relate to one another, and to discover the sources of their pain and inner conflict, proving that there is often more than meets the eye. Cofer’s characters are diverse in personalities, interests, and appearances, breaking the stereotypes that often come with Latino, and in this case specifically Puerto Rican, characters in the media. You get the punk, the beauty, the ugly duckling, the brain, and more. Their cultural background makes them different in some ways, and yet, as teenagers they belong to a distinct culture of sorts that has nothing to do with differences in language or appearance. One of the most interesting features is the fact that many of the characters are not fluent in Spanish, perhaps one of the reasons why many of them struggle with conforming to the world in which their parents are trying to raise them, one in which they attempt to insert the culture, religion and ways of their own childhoods into a completely different time and place. One of my favorite passages that illustrates these clashing worlds is from “Home to El Building:”

Anita walks slowly past the familiar sights: shops, bodegas, and bars of the street where she’s lived all her life, feeling like she’s saying adios, and good riddance to it all. Her destination is the future. She is walking toward love. But first she has to get past her life that’s contained by this block. The barrio is like an alternate universe. That’s what they call it on Star Trek when the crew of the starship Enterprise find themselves in another world that may look like Earth, but where the natives have history turned around, and none of the usual rules apply. In these streets, on this block, people speak in Spanish, even though they’re in the middle of New Jersey; they eat fruits and vegetables that grow only in a tropical country; and they (Anita is thinking of her parents now) try to make their children behave like they were living in another century....

Having grown up in the alternate universe that was my Miami neighborhood, I know exactly what Anita is talking about, as will many other young reader growing up with similar experiences.

While there are no specific pop cultural references, some of the stories do have a somewhat dated tone. The story “White Balloons,” in which the neighborhood teens rally to help out a gay man who grew up on the barrio and returns, sick with AIDS, to fulfill a dream before he dies, feels like it comes from a very specific period in the past. I am not so deluded to think that uninformed and backward attitudes towards homosexuality and AIDS have changed drastically, but these have changed to some extent in the past couple of decades, which makes the story feel very early-to-mid-1990s. 

Not sure how often this book is assigned as high school or college reading. It was assigned in a recent class I took on books and other material for young adults. I have to wonder if this is a testament to its ability to stand the test of time or if there has been no other work of Latino-focused YA published since 1995 worthy of inclusion on the reading list of a YA literature course. Nevertheless, it is a classic of Latino youth literature. The struggle to find one's place will resonate with teens regardless of racial or cultural background.

Under the Mesquite

Garcia McCall, Guadalupe. Under the Mesquite. New York: Lee & Low Books Inc., 2011. Ages 12 and up. 9781600604294   

Guadalupe Garcia McCall’s poignant debut novel-in-verse carries readers over the course of Lupita’s high school years as her adolescence unfolds in the shadow of her mother’s cancer. Throughout the novel Lupita struggles to navigate her often conflicted sense of place, caught between the past and her future: her role as both child and adult in the family; and as an immigrant still strongly rooted in her homeland but also learning to adapt to her new home. She dreams of acting, writing and going to college, but as the oldest of eight siblings, must balance these aspirations with her familial responsibilities. Woven into the story are Lupita’s memories of her childhood in Mexico. While most of the book takes place in Lupita’s present, these memories of Mexico serve to contrast her life before and after her mother’s illness and her family’s arrival in the United States. Her memories are of a happier, more peaceful, and more colorful life.


In Under the Mesquite Garcia McCall manages to create a multidimensional protagonist many young adults, regardless of background, can identify with. Young adults who have experienced the loss of a parent to a terminal illness will find themselves in Lupita’s emotional journey through her mother’s treatments and failing health. Immigrants and children of immigrants will see themselves in Lupita as she searches for a sense of place and identity in a new country. Teens in general will identify with Lupita as she makes her way through the social pressures of high school and tries to understand what it means to grow up.

Author interviews reveal that Under the Mesquite is semi-autobiographical. Like Lupita, Garcia McCall also emigrated from Mexico to Eagle Pass, Texas, a border town, as a young child. Perhaps it is this especially personal tie to her protagonist that enabled Garcia McCall to convey so well the emotions, in all the joyful and heartbreaking moments, of her characters. Garcia McCall’s poetic imagery captures the sights and sounds of Lupita’s world. It is easy to visualize potato skins falling like "old maple leaves" and to hear the sighing of a plastic bag and the whispering of a pencil on paper. Equally vivid is the way in which Garcia McCall depicts Lupita's relationship with her siblings. She struggles to be independent and to move away from her family all the while being so deeply entrenched in her role within the group. There is a clear sense of the bond, at times alternating between accepting and resentful, but always loving, that keeps them together through petty sibling disagreements and through tragedy:   

The six of us sisters
were round beads knotted side by side,
like pearls on a necklace,
strung so close together
we always made one another cry. 

Much like the mesquite from the book’s title, a tree with the ability to adapt and survive in almost any type of environment, Lupita is resilient and able to maintain a sense of hope despite the pain and grief she experiences during her mother’s illness and death. This book had my heart in its grip from the very first poem, "the story of us," in which Lupita searches her mother's purse "stealing secretos / mining for knowledge." I saw an image of myself as a young person, the child of immigrants who guarded their secretos tightly too, searching my own mother's purse unsure of what I was looking for or what I might find, but knowing there were things to be discovered. Highly recommended!

The book includes a glossary of names, Spanish words and cultural references. Check out the Lee & Low Books Webpage for Under the Mesquite for some nice features including a few audio clips of Garcia McCall reading poems from the book.