Customer Reviews

Dionicio Morales: A Life in Two Cultures

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Reading this book made me feel like I was sitting around the campfire, listening to my grandfather tell about the old days. It tells about the struggles of a family leaving Mexico during the revolution in search of a better life in the United States. I especially found it interesting since I live in the Los Angeles area because you learn a lot of history about the area. It is very fast, easy reading and hard to put down. It's a great story to read at any age.

I think is a great book that tells the struggles of Mexican American family emigrating to the United States. It is a great source of information for people like me, who would like to learn more about another culture. The struggle and the rewards, the suffering and the satisfaction that the author goes through is compelling.

It is a very simply written autobiography that has helped me to understand why my own father had his strong opinions about sticking with "our kind". Morales' experiences were so much like my father's during those years. What I experienced was only a fraction of their indignities.
What surprised me about this book, while reading about the struggles and demoralization of Mexicans and Mex-American, was that it didn't anger me. Instead it encouraged me to do my part in helping those that continue to struggle in this great country of ours.

This is the story of a boy growing up with little, but always yearning for more and eventually achieving his goals. In a sense a modern ethnic Horatio Alger story, but with cultural respect as the goal rather than financial success. The book was definitely a page-turner, Dionicio had quite a childhood and I always wanted to know the next anecdote that would come out. At the same time, I was shocked at how my country has treated those we consider less desirable.

Being biracial I look like a typical white American, and hence have no experiences of such discrimination. However, I have often wondered about what discrimination my father may have gone through, or especially what my father's parents went through when they were new Mexican immigrants to California. This is sure to be a topic of conversation next time I meet the grandparents.