Title: Balo's war
Description: This book uses a variety of characters, real and imagined, to tell the story of a people who went from being Spaniard to Mexican to American in a short span of 30 years. They struggled to hold on to their land, their language, their culture, and their history-against insurmountable odds. At times this struggle resorted to violence. This is a historical novel depicting the "Plan of San Diego, Texas," one of those times when the struggle became violent. They lived in what can truly be called "Medio Mexico." It was an area that was claimed by distant capitals in Mexico City and Washington DC, but ruled by neither; neither knew or cared much about them. They were caught in between two languages, two cultures, two legal systems, two political systems, and two monetary and economic systems. Despite it all, they survived and flourished. It was not easy by any means; to survive they had to fight and die for what they believed, what they owned, what they knew, what they wanted for their children.