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Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Mexican WhiteBoy, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Race and Identity
Fate vs. Opportunity
Violence, Power, and Coping Mechanisms
Coming of Age
Family, Friendship, and Culture
Summary
Analysis
1. Danny Lopez arrives in National City to stay with his cousin, Sofia. Danny is from Leucadia, but he has family in National City because Danny’s dad, who is Mexican, grew up there. Danny feels like he doesn’t fit in at his private school in Leucadia because he is half Mexican and everyone else is white. But in National City, he is self-conscious of having a different style and lighter skin than the others. Sofia introduces Danny to her friends, and it becomes glaringly obvious to him how different he is from them. He discreetly cuts the skin on his arm with his fingernails as he cringes with embarrassment.
Both Leucadia and National City are in the greater San Diego area of Southern California. Leucadia is an affluent beach town. National City is close to the Mexican border and has a majority Hispanic population. Danny cuts his arm to cope with the discomfort he feels about not fitting in. That Danny engages in this form of self-harm suggests that the anxiety of feeling like an outsider is something that affects him deeply—and is something he struggles to cope with.
Themes
2. Danny is spending the summer in National City away from Danny’s mom and sister because he wants to use the summer to earn money to go see Danny’s dad in Mexico. Danny looks around the area and notices a group of kids playing stickball. Everyone he sees is Mexican, except one of the boys playing ball, who is Black, and a girl who looks half white.
Danny plans to make money in order to visit his dad, but it is not yet clear how being in National City will help him earn money. Stickball is an urban version of baseball where players modify the game to use whatever is available to them—sticks instead of bats, for example. The stickball game Danny sees is a clue that the kids playing are of low socioeconomic status. Danny is acutely aware of the races of the people he sees. He easily recognizes that one girl is half white and half Mexican, because he has the same ethnic makeup.
Themes
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