37 pages • 1 hour read
Ernesto GalarzaBarrio Boy
Nonfiction | Autobiography / Memoir | Adult | Published in 1971A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Parts 3-5Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Part 3 Summary: “North from Mexico”
Ernesto boards a train going northbound with José and his mother. The journey is long, and there are regular delays. There is a measles outbreak on the train. All of the families with children are held in El Nanchi for medical inspection. Ernesto gets measles the day after they arrive in the camp. Once he has recovered, his family waits for several days for the train to come back so they can complete their journey. They board another train, but the journey is very slow as they only travel by daylight. Part way through, the track ahead of them is blown up, and they are delayed once again. After two days, the train journey begins again, and they eventually arrive in Nogales. In Nogales, they meet American soldiers and workers, which confuses Ernesto. Ernesto eventually learns that they are in the United States. José goes to meet Gustavo and works on the railway in Sacramento. José tells Ernesto that he has to take care of his mother while they wait in Tucson for a pass and money so the family can reunite in Sacramento. In Tucson, Ernesto becomes fascinated with how different America is. They spend one night in a hotel and then find the family they are to board with. They move into a barrio and find very little to do. Gustavo sends money regularly, and eventually, they get the pass to Sacramento. They travel by train to Sacramento and arrive at the Hotel Español.
Part 4 Summary: “Life in the Lower Part of Town”
They arrive at the Hotel Español and check into their room. The room is small, and Galarza compares it to a prison. Ernesto is overwhelmed by the business of Sacramento and quickly decides he doesn’t like it. Gustavo and José arrive, and they check out of the hotel to go to their new home in the barrio. While the rooms are “dank and cheerless” (266), Ernesto enjoys watching people from the porch. José and Gustavo work while Ernesto and his mother get used to Sacramento. His mother sends for her sewing machine, which she left with a neighbor in Mazatlán. However, the letters are never answered, and she is unable to work. Ernesto finds a job selling newspapers and does odd jobs in the rooming house.
The barrio is a multi-ethnic, working-class enclave with temporary housing. The neighborhood is full of chicanos, unskilled workers born in Mexico who recently arrived in the United States. Such workers, Galarza explains, sought to move up from temporary or seasonal work to more stable contracts. Chicanos had little in common with pochos, Mexicans who had grown up in the United States. Pochos spoke English, understood American culture, and were perceived as thinking they were better than chicanos.
Life is very different in the United States. There are grocery stores instead of markets and parks instead of plazas. Americans also act differently than Mexicans. Galarza observes:
In more personal ways we had to get used to the Americans. They did not listen if you did not speak loudly, as they always did. In the Mexican style, people would know that you were enjoying their jokes tremendously if you merely smiled and shook a little, as if you were trying to swallow your mirth. In the American style there was little difference between a laugh and a roar, and until you got used to them you could hardly tell whether the boisterous Americans were roaring mad or roaring happy (277).
America is also full of pleasant surprises, like pieces of china that come in boxes of rolled oats. Ernesto’s exposure to American culture becomes more prominent once he enrolls in school. His teacher, Miss Ryan, is patient and kind as he slowly learns English. The student body is multi-ethnic, and he meets people from many different backgrounds. He also learns many life lessons in the barrio, including the labor struggles being organized by the Industrial Workers of the World. Over time, Ernesto makes friends, particularly after joining a YMCA and the Sacramento Boys Band.
Eventually, the family he left behind in Jalco, the Lopezes, make plans to come to the United States. They travel by sea to Sacramento. The reunion is muted and formal, and Ernesto shyly meets his cousins. However, before they leave the harbor, the Lopezes have to go through immigration. The immigration officials reject their paperwork, and the Lopezes are forced to return to Mexico. Ernesto’s uncles do not understand what went wrong. In another brush with immigration, José is picked up by the police because he doesn’t have his registration card on him. Over time, they settle into life in America, and his mother remarries. She gives birth to two girls.
Part 5 Summary: “On the Edge of the Barrio”
Once they are settled in Sacramento, Ernesto’s family carefully saves their money. Eventually they have enough for a down payment on a house, and they take out a mortgage. They leave the barrio and move into a house in Oak Park, a suburban neighborhood on the far side of town. The bungalow has five rooms and a front and back porch. They by furniture second hand or borrow it from friends. The only new furniture is a gas range, which they pay for in installments. The lot is sunny and airy, with an orchard one on side and a pasture in the back where they plant a garden and fruit trees. The neighborhood is very different than the barrio, and they are surrounded by Americans. Life in Oak Park is steady and reliable. Ernesto gets a bicycle, which he uses to go to school. He starts attending a new school, which, unlike his previous school, has primarily American-born students. Gustavo encourages Ernesto to study and become a doctor, lawyer, engineer, or professor. Ernesto’s mother has a fourth child, a boy. They begin to prepare the basement as a home for the Lopezes when they are able to come. They are planning for the future.
The Spanish influenza reaches Sacramento, and Gustavo falls ill. Soon, everyone but José is sick. Gustavo and his mother die. The night of his mother’s funeral, José goes to the barrio and is arrested for drunkenly shooting up Second Street. He is released, and José and Ernesto rent a small basement room in the barrio. Ernesto continues to attend high school, which is unusual for teenage boys in the barrio. José provides him with food and a place to live, but otherwise, Ernesto has to fend for himself. He finds jobs as a farmworker, a drug store clerk, and a messenger with Western Union. He also plays as a fiddler in a mariachi band in a dancehall and finds work illustrating Christmas cards. While working as a farmworker one summer, Ernesto is asked by his fellow workers to advocate for their rights to management. He meets Simon Lubin, who helps the farmworkers, and Lubin tells Ernesto that is important to organize the workers. Ernesto isn’t totally sure what Lubin means, but that night he gives a speech to the other workers about their rights. This is his first experience organizing workers. The story ends with Ernesto working throughout the summer and contemplating joining the debate team when he goes back to high school.
Parts 3-5 Analysis
In Part 2, Ernesto and his family make a series of migrations. In Part 3, they undertake another journey north, but they experience frequent delays. Eventually, they arrive in the United States, crossing the border from Mexico. Ernesto is at first frightened of the American soldiers, as he had been taught that they are the enemies of Mexico. Galarza reflects on the subtle differences between America and Mexico:
The Americans never drew an eagle on their flag. The red and white were the same as on ours but why they liked blue better than green was just one of those peculiar things about Americans (252).
Ernesto is also confused that Americans use different money and that it is worth more than Mexican currency.
At the hotel in Tucson, Ernesto becomes interested in electric lights controlled by a switch, the springs in the mattress, which he can bounce on, and the flush toilet. He is less impressed with American food. Once in Sacramento, they see vineyards, orchards, and pasture for the cattle. He is overwhelmed by the traffic of mules, wagons, and automobiles and by the shops, warehouses, and restaurants. Breakfast and dinner are served in the hotel, but they are too afraid to venture into the street for lunch. Ernesto experiences culture shock when he arrives in the United States.
The neighborhood that they move into, the barrio, was formerly a fancy part of the city, but when the rich people moved uptown, the neighborhood fell into disrepair. The houses and backyards were fenced off and subdivided, while private homes became boarding houses and rooming houses. What were once smart hotels and nice shops became saloons, pool halls, and pawnshops. Most of the Mexicans who lived in the barrio were refugees who had fled the revolution. Galarza highlights that his family’s story is typical of many Mexican immigrants in this period. In the barrio, people help each other find jobs and housing. People maintain Mexican habits, including speaking Spanish at home. They remain proud of their Mexican heritage, particularly their chicano identity. Turning pocho is considered a half-step to becoming American, and if Ernesto forgets his manners, his mother asks him if is turning pochito. Life in the barrio is removed from the civic life of the city, and the police are the most familiar public officials. Volunteers help residents access essential services like hospitals and navigate court visits. Once he is in third grade, Ernesto becomes one of these volunteers.
We witness his slow acculturation to America. When the family travels uptown, they feel like foreigners, but in the barrio, they feel at home. Many of the residents of the barrio are Mexican, but there are also Japanese, Chinese, Filipino, Hindu, Portuguese, Italian, and Slavic people. When Ernesto goes to school, his classmates are from diverse ethnic backgrounds. While racial slurs are common in the school yard, the students are taught by their teachers to unlearn this behavior. The students are encouraged to become proud Americans without abandoning their own heritage. Galarza suggests that holding a dual identity like Mexican American is possible and that moving to America doesn’t mean giving up a Mexican identity. The family’s exposure to American culture escalates when they move to a bungalow in Oak Park, a White neighborhood.
When the Lopezes are turned away at immigration, Ernesto recognizes the arbitrary nature of the law:
The immigration officer, through the interpreter, was explaining. The Lopez’s would not be allowed to enter the United States. He explained the rules and the laws and the orders and they all made the same point: the family would be detained for a few days on the island and would then have to return to Mexico the way they had come (292).
The unclear rules and decision making of bureaucracies works against immigrants and non-native English speakers as they are not given any explanation as to why the paperwork is rejected or any advice on how to proceed.
The man in the uniform had shown us some papers but he had not told us why. He had not even said what would have to be done to bring our family back and take them home with us. […] Our hopes had been denied and our joy had been turned to sadness by people we were powerless to even question (293).
His uncles are angry and upset, and Gustavo calls it una injusticia, but there is nothing they can do. In another incident, Ernesto has to get José’s immigration paperwork sent to San Francisco because he was picked up by immigration police for not having his paperwork on him. Ernesto speaks English, so he is able to navigate the situation, but he highlights that many Mexican immigrants would not have been able to figure out how to get the paperwork delivered without help. Workers also have very few rights or protections. Both Ernesto and his uncles pick up random jobs where they are often underpaid or treated poorly by contractors who put together crews and handle payroll.
Because Galarza ends his memoir as he is about to enter high school, he does not recount the development of his career in organizing and activism. However, throughout the book, we see his class-consciousness being planted, as he sees his family struggle to make ends meet. In this final part, Ernesto takes several pivotal steps that lead the way toward his future career path. He seeks out the political activist Simon Lubin, who worked to improve the conditions of immigrant workers; their meeting is one of the first moments in the book when Ernesto realizes the importance of organizing. That night, Ernesto makes his first organizing speech to the other farmworkers. As the book ends, Ernesto is considering joining his school’s debate team, another step that suggests the path Galarza ultimately took to become an activist and professor.
