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Uno Gets Another Drunken Tongue-Lashing
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 and Uno visit a high school in Logan Heights for another hustle attempt. The baseball field is shabby. They meet Cory, whom Uno knows from juvenile detention—Cory was there for selling drugs. Cory introduces Danny and Uno to Marzel, who Cory says is a great batter, though he has a questionable character. Cory and Marzel are both Black. Uno shows Danny a new catching mitt he bought, even though he’s saving money for Oxnard. Now Danny doesn’t have to worry about hurting Uno’s hand with his throws, and Uno says he’ll need the mitt anyway to play for his school’s team next year.
Logan Heights is an urban area of San Diego that is known for high rates of poverty and gang activity. Cory’s comment that Marzel has a questionable character is foreboding. Uno’s resolve to join his school’s baseball team shows that Uno has come a long way from the incident when he was 12, which prevented him from continuing to play organized baseball.
Themes
2. Danny’s first pitches to Marzel are wild. Uno approaches Danny and says that he’s trying too hard, that the game isn’t about Danny, and that Danny has the train's power within him. On the next pitch, Danny lets his mind go blank, and he easily strikes Marzel out. Afterward, Marzel’s girlfriend approaches Danny to ask why he doesn’t speak Spanish if he’s Mexican. Marzel, furious, gets ready to attack Danny for talking to his girlfriend, but Uno intervenes and beats Marzel up. Later, Uno says that it was the train’s power that made him fight Marzel—and that this is the same force that makes Danny pitch so well.
Both Danny and Uno feel that they contain the train’s power now that they have felt its energy and can harness this power when needed. For Danny, accessing this power means letting go of others’ expectations. He finally understands that he loses control of his pitching only when he tries to impress others. In both Danny and Uno’s cases, the “train’s power” represents power that is actually already within them—paradoxically, they can access it only when they’re not actively attempting to control a situation.
Themes
In a letter to Danny's dad, Danny writes that his baseball team is now the best in the state and that he’s the star of the team. Danny recalls how Javier taught him to pitch in an alley. He writes that ever since then he was “destined” to become a great pitcher—he couldn’t possibly be anything else. Even though he’s a great student, Danny writes, at school he feels the same as everyone else. As a pitcher, though, he’s distinct and important. He controls people, and everyone looks up to him.
This letter shows that Danny’s view of the future is like Uno’s—they both see their futures as predetermined by their family and life circumstances. At the beginning of the novel Danny remembers Javier saying that the pitcher controls the baseball game. Danny still desires control and hopes to gain more control through his pitching, but this is slowly changing as he comes to understand that he can only truly gain agency if he lets go of this desire.
Themes
