Mexican White Boy
In his latest novel for young adults Matt de la Pena describes the life-altering summer of Danny Lopez, a biracial high school student spending the summer with his father’s relatives in a low-income, predominately Mexican town just north of the Mexican border near San Diego, California. Danny has moved a great deal in his young adult life but grew up mostly in an upper middle class neighborhood in San Diego and now attends a prestigious, private high school where he is one of only a few students of color. His father is Mexican and his mother is Caucasian American, and Danny spends much of his time trying to come to terms with feeling in between two cultures and two ethnicities. When he is at school, he feels too brown, and when he is around his Mexican relatives, he feels too white. Unfortunately, the adults in Danny’s life continually let him down and fail to provide the support and guidance he desperately seeks.
The most difficult experience Danny had to face in his young life was the unexplained disappearance of his father four years ago. Since then, Danny has lived with his mother and sister, speaking as few words as possible, disappearing into dreams of baseball stardom, and inventing ways of reuniting with his father. Danny thinks writing letters to his dad using exaggerated details of a make-believe life will make him suddenly reappear.
As the book opens, Danny’s life is about to undergo even more upheaval and disappointment as his mother announces she will move to San Francisco, California, to live with her wealthy boyfriend. Instead of following his mom to a strange new city, Danny decides to spend his summer in National City, the town where his father grew up, with his aunt, uncle, and cousin. Danny spends the summer immersed in his family’s Mexican culture, food, and language and slowly comes out of his quiet shell.
Most significantly, Danny spends every waking moment practicing and playing baseball. The one place in Danny’s life where he has never felt like an outsider is on the pitcher’s mound. Much of this book revolves around how a young man can overcome his feelings of rootlessness and abandonment through his determination on the baseball field and his willingness to build new friendships. Danny befriends an African American boy, Uno, who lives in the neighborhood and also plays baseball. Like Danny, Uno feels like an outsider and longs to live with his father and escape a difficult family life.
Two of the most enjoyable aspects of this novel are de la Pena’s use of quick-paced dialogue sprinkled with Spanish and the way he builds suspense. As I turned the pages, I wanted to know if Danny would ever reunite with his father, succeed on the baseball field, or grow to feel comfortable in his own skin. This book addresses themes of race, social class, abandonment, and coming of age and will appeal to young adult reluctant readers, particularly boys. Issues of sexuality and violence are addressed in these stories, and this content may make this book inappropriate for readers younger than 16. Matt de la Pena’s first book, Ball Don’t Lie, (2007, Random House) was an ALA-YALSA Book for Young Adults and will soon be adapted for film.
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