18 of 19 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Victor Villasenor is Amazing, July 29, 2004
This review is from: Burro Genius: A Memoir (Spanish Edition) (Hardcover)
Victor Villasenor is an incredible, wonderful writer. He is all the more so when you read this biography and learn of the immense challenges he faced from the educational system, his extreme dyslexia and from bigotry.
This astounding book will make you laugh, cry and incredibly angry.
This book should be required reading in any school.
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16 of 17 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
This is about ALL OF US!, July 16, 2004
This review is from: Burro Genius: A Memoir (Spanish Edition) (Hardcover)
I was born in America, like Victor. I am not Hispanic. I relate to this book because my ancestors were from Italy. They came to America with very little, and with no knowledge of English. They built businesses, some of which flourish to this very day! They worked hard - often much harder than the people for whom they worked. They educated their children, often with very little help from the American school system. They survived drought, hunger, abuse, unfeeling teachers, uncaring political leaders. This is about Victor. And it is about all the people who built America. It is about you, me, our friends and relatives, our neighbors. Please read this. And please read WALKING STARS with your children. You are, after all -- each and every one of you -- a Burro Genius Miracle Maker!
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14 of 15 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
The Transcendence of a Burro Genius, May 1, 2005
This review is from: Burro Genius: A Memoir (Spanish Edition) (Hardcover)
This is book is a touching memoir of an American man of Mexican descent growing up in 1940's San Diego County. The author takes us through many themes of his childhood, and like a good storyteller weaves these stories into an account of a childhood that was both harrowing and often uplifting. The story takes us from when Victor Villasenor was a child till the time he published his first book after an astounding 265 rejections from publishers.
It is the story of one mans ability to transcend beyond the small minds and ignorance that experienced growing up. The opening chapter has Mr. Villasenor being hastily chosen as the main speaker for a conference of English teachers. He takes the opportunity to wail at a racist educational system that not only marginalized him as a student, it also tried to crush his spirit of creativity and rob him of his identity. This event sets off the author reminiscing about his childhood experiences, going beyond his school experiences, and how he was able to not only survive but was able to thrive.
The book contains several themes, one of which is racism. The author describes for us how as a child in elementary school he was psychologically and physically abused by racist teachers in the school he attended. There are times that the reader may feel themselves becoming overwhelmed by the sheer amount of abuse the author is the brunt of. It is repeated so often and sometimes with such intensity the reader begins to feel the helplessness that the author felt as a child and as disempowered. The author writes of the repeated and escalating abuse so often that is sometimes clouds the rest of the story. The abuse becomes so bad that the author fantasizes about killing his teachers.
This book is not only a story of growing up in a racist system; it is a powerful and moving story of a loving family. It is when Mr. Villasenor writes about the accounts of his family is when his ability to weave a tale and tell a story becomes the strongest. It is the family that is one of the saving graces of his childhood. The family is guided by the spirit of the grandmother who has passed on, the wisdom and love of his father, the concern of his mother and the guidance from his brother and sister. He writes in a manner that his family becomes very real in the way he describes them and his interactions. It is ultimately family that it is the saving grace for this man who could have easily gone down many different paths had it not been for the love of a good family like he had.
There are many young men that grew up the same way Mr. Villasenor did; however, the results of their lives have been different. All too often people of color or anyone perceived as different or outside the norm, are not born into families that have love and strength still intact to get them through to adulthood. The love and strength having been worn down long ago in the parents themselves so that they don't have much to pass on but their own pain and fear of a system that has tore them down. Parents who do not know how to have a child cope because they were never taught to cope themselves. Mr. Villasenor's story thus becomes one not only of the repression of society but a story of the transcendence of that oppression from the love of family and a deep abiding faith in spirituality.
One of the more powerful themes in the book is the author's belief in a world of the supernatural where the presence of divinity exists in all things. It is not a dogmatic religion that the young man is taught growing up, but one of where people are connected to the Earth and interconnected to one another; it is a sense of spirituality. It has been said that religion is for people who are afraid of hell and spirituality is for people who have already experienced it. It is the latter that comes through in Mr. Villasenor's writing in this book. His recollections are tinged in this abiding feeling of a loving divinity that has that has running threads through everything, that connects everything.
The author writes of spirituality that is nature based. It is a blend of some Catholicism but more closely aligned to his Navajo roots and the connectedness his grandmother had with nature and natural spirits. The author relates that in his first story in which he was praised, by a substitute teacher, of the spirits that he believes exists in his animals. The substitute teacher encourages the young Villasenor and affirms his beliefs, only to have his regular teacher come back to try and squash whatever sense of pride he may have been feeling. Mr. Villasenor's spirit and his spirit are not touched though. It is almost as if his spirituality is something that resides within him that cannot be harmed, others may fling mud that may stick on other parts of him but it slides of his belief in the divine.
It is this deep abiding faith that gets Mr. Villasenor through what was the worst experience of his growing up, the loss of his brother to a rare liver illness. He writes of his families reactions to the illness, which the author and his family know could have been prevented if the doctor had diagnosed it in time. This is the time when the family is tested the most. The author speaks of the visions he has of his brother and the lessons learned. Mr. Villasenor lives in a world where this is his reality, where supposed science and reason have not come to rob him of the sense of a cycle of life death, and afterlife that is rich and real.
In his conclusions, the author makes the most powerful and life affirming statements about his experiences. He writes movingly of lessons he has learned through his childhood and adolescence. The lessons aren't of racism, intolerance, death, alcoholism or loss of faith. They are about his learning the lessons of forgiveness, love, compassion and a peace in his soul. He understands that these are the ultimate lessons that are learned through his traumatic experiences. He could have easily become bitter and angry. It is telling that today Mr. Villasenor is a featured speaker for many educational groups. Only a man who has come to peace and forgiveness could do this.
This book was a powerful read and it is heartily recommended as a testimony of the human spirit. Too often, the Chicano experience is often framed in the aspect of survival through gangs, violence and drugs. While it these to make powerful stories of overcoming, it is refreshing to read the story of a man who turned to none of these things to ultimately learn the lessons we all need to learn. That is not a knock against any former gang member, drug user, or violent offender. That does not make their transcendence any less. It is just that too often they are seen as the model for the Chicano experience in America and one that is often emulated by younger people. The truth is, it is also the minority of the Chicano experience in America. More often than not it is stories like Mr. Villasenor that are the more common. It would be nice to get back to the paradigm as the Chicano as the spiritual Earth person connected to life, nature, family, and a deep resolve for overcoming. This is the paradigm that most Chicanos and those who have grown up with them know. The current paradigm of the Chicano as being seen as the gang member on the evening news killing each other is not the reality for all or even most Chicano youth. We all have much to learn from Mr. Villasenor.
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