A place in El Paso
Subtitle: a Mexican-American childhood
By: Gloria López-Stafford.
Edition: 1st ed.
Publisher: University of New Mexico Press
Published: 1996
Place of publication: Albuquerque
Language: eng
Number of pages: 212
Subjects: López-Stafford, Gloria, 1937-  -- Childhood and youth; Mexican Americans -- Texas -- El Paso -- Biography; El Paso (Tex.) -- Biography
Description: This memoir of growing up in El Paso in the 1940s and 1950s creates an entire city: the way a barrio awakens in the early morning sun, the thrill of a rare desert snow, the taste of fruit-flavored raspadas on summer afternoons, the "money boys" who would beg as commuters passed back and forth to Juarez, and the mischief of children entertaining themselves in the streets.

Lopez-Stafford shows the reader El Paso through the eyes of Yoya - short for Gloria - the high-spirited narrator, who is five years old when the book begins.

Gloria is a survivor. Her young mother has died leaving her in the care of her much older father, who tries to provide for his family by selling used clothing. Her brother Carlos, Padre Luna, and a community of children and women assume responsibility for Gloria, but like the inexplicable loss of her mother, unexpected changes separate her from her beloved barrio neighborhood. The search for su lugar, her place, becomes a search for identity as Gloria seeks to understand her various homes and families.
Table of contents: title: Prologue, 1949; title: The second ward and my parents; title: St. Vrain Street; title: A motherless child; title: The trouble with English; title: A September party; title: Plata; title: Macho; title: December 1945; title: Sayings and secrets; title: Hijo natural; title: Poverty and work; title: Sábado de Gloria; title: Life with Mariá; title: Adiós; title: Alameda Street; title: Pershing Drive; title: Céfiro; title: El sol; title: October; title: If; title: Christmas 1949.