Nobody's son
Subtitle: notes from an American life
By: Luis Alberto Urrea.
Series: Camino del sol
Publisher: University of Arizona Press
Published: 1998
Place of publication: Tucson
Language: eng
Number of pages: 188
Subjects: Urrea, Luis Alberto.; Authors, American -- 20th century -- Biography.; Mexican American authors -- Biography.; Mexican Americans -- Social life and customs.; Southwestern States -- Social life and customs.; Mexico -- Social life and customs.
Description: Born in Tijuana to a Mexican father and an Anglo mother from Staten Island, Urrea moved to San Diego when he was three. His childhood was a mix of opposites, a clash of cultures and languages. In prose that seethes with energy and crackles with dark humor, Urrea tells a story that is both troubling and wildly entertaining.

Urrea endured violence and fear in the barrio of his youth. But the true battlefield was inside his home, where his parents waged daily war over their son's ethnicity. He suffered disease and abuse, and he learned brutal lessons about machismo. But there were gentler moments as well: a simple interlude with his father, sitting on the back of a bakery truck, or witnessing the ultimate gesture of tenderness between the godparents who taught him the magical power of love.

His story is unique, but it is not unlike thousands of other stories being played out across the United States, stories of Americans who have waged war - both in the political arena and in their own homes - to claim their own personal and cultural identities. It is a story of what it means to belong to a nation that is sometimes painfully multicultural, where even the language both separates and unites us.
Table of contents: title: Nobody's son; title: Tijuana wonderland; title: The day I launched the Virgin Mary into orbit; title: Down the highway with Edward Abbey; title: Whores; title: Sanctuary; title: Leaving Shelltown.