Victor Villaseñor presents a nonfiction novel, Rise from Gold , based on the experience of his family from Mexico to America. The novel tells a parallel story of Villaseñor’s parents, Lupe Gomes and Juan Salvador. The story predominantly describes family stories and the struggle of two Mexican families who find their space in a foreign land. The story of the book describes the struggles of three generations of Mexican immigrants through poverty, love, and prejudices. The main themes expressed in the book are that of love and life, prejudices, poverty, immigrant life, religion, and family. It tells small stories about family and expresses how the family evolved and/or devolved around the kitchen table. Family plays a pivotal role in shaping the structure and the plot of the novel. This is so because family bonding forms the basis of the novel. The main aim of the paper is to understand how family is portrayed in the novel. The love and joy that family brought to each member and the strength that it conveyed when time was rough has been beautifully portrayed in the novel. The theme of familial life explicitly shows love and respect for one another. The hardships the family faced brought them close. The strength of the family is definitely portrayed through the closeness they shared even when the children grew old. The bonding the protagonists had with their mother is important. Further, the matriarchy is considered the pivotal for a strong and loving family. The family chronicle of Villaseñor predominantly portrays the life of two families facing similar fate of immigrant life and poverty. Lupe’s family came from a village named La Lluvia de Ora in North Mexico. They adjusted to the changing demands of the industrialized mining hub for many years, until the Mexican revolution breaks out. As the revolution closes on their village, they found themselves in mortal danger. It was then that the family decided to migrate to California from the money accumulated from selling cast-off gold. They reach Arizona where the family finds work in the mines. Nevertheless, fate soon takes them to California where Lupe meets Juan. Throughout these hardships, Lupe’s family stayed together. They faced the incumbent revolutionaries together. Bad times bring a strong bonding among people who toil together. This is what has happened in case of Lupe and Juan’s family. Both the families have faced innumerable problems – of death, money, and prejudice – but they have stayed together, as a single unit. On the other hand, Juan and his escape along with his family from Mexico. Juan is described at the beginning of the book as a troublemaker. However, even when Juan was facing the identity crisis of adolescence and immigration, Juan’s closeness to his mother, Doña Margarita, was indisputable. His love and respect for his mother surpassed all the lust for other misadventures. Even when Juan’s family was migrating to California, they faced acute poverty when they did not have enough food. Even at that moment, Doña taught lessons of love and family bonding to her son. Familial love and the strength that family bestowed on man becomes apparent from the tales that Doña chooses to tell Juan. Similarly, Lupe too is shown extremely close to her mother, and it is her mother’s love that keeps up the joy in their poverty stricken life in California. The conversations in the story are strewn with the wor