Mexican WhiteBoy Study Guide

Matt de la Peña was born in southern California into a mixed-race family. De la Peña’s father was Mexican and his mother was white, and as a result he grew up feeling confused about his racial identity. This struggle is reflected in de la Peña’s books, which often feature race as a motif. He was a star basketball player as a kid, and a passion for sports also shines through in his writing. De la Peña went to University of the Pacific on a basketball scholarship, and later earned an MFA in creative writing from San Diego State University. He published his first novel Ball Don’t Lie in 2005 and has published numerous children’s and young adult titles since then. He lives in Southern California with his family.

Racial segregation and prejudice have been widespread in the United States for as long as the country has existed, and thus they are always topical issues. That said, Southern California has the relatively unique ongoing issue of being highly diverse yet highly segregated. It became common in the early 20th century for Mexican agricultural laborers to come to California in search of work. Around this time, communities of homeowners created covenants designed to keep people of color out of affluent, white areas. Racially restrictive covenants have been illegal now for many years, but the segregation they created remain as cyclical and systemic racism persists. Even now, the L.A. and San Diego metropolitan areas are much more segregated than equally racially diverse American cities like New York and Chicago.

Mexican WhiteBoy is a young adult novel about racial identity that was published before the Black Lives Matter movement, and in the wake of this movement, much more young adult fiction dealing with similar themes has been published. One such work is The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas, which is about a Black girl who attends a white school in an affluent area. See No Color by Shannon Gibney is another title about a teenager who deals with unique questions of racial identity. Here to Stay by Sara Farizan also shares the themes of racial identity and passion and perseverance in sports.