Customer Reviews

Burro Genius: A Memoir (Spanish Edition)

5 star:		(18)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

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.

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!

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.

Victor Villasenor has written well before, but this is something completely new and special. It's his story, compelling, heartbreaking, and funny. You want to keep reading just to find out what happens to this kid, who is at once precocious, confused, and angry.

Victor's voice rings through the pages. Even if you have never heard him in person, you will know his voice by the words he writes. And you'll know him, in a more personal way than you probably know your neighbors.

The book is definitely psychologically and politically challenging. You can't help but wonder why his world is the way it is, and what you can do, years later, to change it.

Burro Genius has been added to my list of favorite books, along with some of his previous work....

Learning about the way his teachers abused him and the way his classmates disrespected and hated him because he was Mexican made me feel helpless.....it made me wish many times through out the book that it would've been me who they'd disrespected and slapped around just so that I could do something about it.

It's an experience that makes him feel out-of-place and turns him into an angry child who, at one point, becomes ashamed of who he is and where his family comes from.

It's crazy how Villasenor, along with other Mexican kids, was forced to speak "English Only" and now that's all changed. America encourages and almosts expects of people to learn more than one language. Like a slap in the face....

Victor's storytelling magic lies in his very natural ability to make you feel as if you are 'right there' as an observor or silent participant in the experiences and adventures he is describing. His stories are treasures because they take his Latino readers back to their own lives in this country AND they offer non-Latino readers a golden opportunity to experience life as seen through the eyes of an immigrant. This particular book, BURRO GENIUS, is just such a story. The key to understanding and feeling what Victor writes about is to try and 'check your cultural baggage at the door' and experience the stories with a clean canvas.

We as a group give Burro Genius five stars. The book was based on a true story and it describes the type of discrimination that Mexicans were given. The author, Victor Villaseòor takes us on the journey of his life while he was growing up in Ocean Side California. Overall, this book is full of emotion, rage and drama that the reader experiences while reading this wonderful book. Victor used foreign and profane diction in his book which gives us the idea of his true personality. Victor suffered severe dyslexia but that did not stop him from writing all of those amazing books. In fact, Burro Genius has brought families together and people have actually forced others to read this book because it is really good. Victor has really inspired people to live their lives to the fullest with his books. Therefore, we strongly recommend this book because it makes us understand the way Mexicans felt thanks to all of that discrimination and it has caused an impact in people's life.

I can relate too many of his childhood dilemmas. As a first generation Mexican American who migrated to the USA legally I remember some of the injustices that my family and I suffered yet now try to teach to other people of Mexican descent who are Chicanos, & Chicanas that have no knowledge of what there parents or grandparents had to go though growing up in this great country of ours. It's alright being who we are. Thank You Victor Villaseñor for another masterpiece & Thanks to all the wonderful teachers that truly try to teach our kids regardless of race color or creed.

I must admit, thie book brings many memories of my own growing up in this country. a country which I was brought to, but grew up to love. As Victor experience harrasment and ridicule from teachers and classmates, I got some of it myself. This book brings back some good memories, and along with it, some bad. But it dealing with those times is part of healing just as he used his writing to heal from the anger brought on by such blatant discrimination. Things have changed, but discrimination lingers on, in very subttle ways. Hidden from view, always lurking in the background.

We as a group gave Burro Genius four in a half stars, because this book made us laugh, cry, and get mad. This book grabbed our attention by the way Victor Villasenor describes all the discrimination he went through. When one of the family members dies it changes most of the characters' lives and it carries drama and power with it. All Latino families should read this book because it involves problems Latino families go through in America.