Race and Identity Theme Analysis

But whenever Danny comes down here, to National City—where his dad grew up, where all his aunts and uncles and cousins still live—he feels pale. A full shade lighter. Albino almost. Less than.

Not only is Uno the only Black kid in the neighborhood—or negrito, as the old Mexicans call him (even though his moms is Mexican, too)—he’s also stronger, quicker, taller, a better fighter. It’s his time.

Back in Leucadia, he made a pact with himself. No more words. Or as few as he could possibly get away with. When his dad spoke at all, he mostly spoke Spanish, but Danny never learned. All he had was his mom’s English. And he didn’t want that anymore.

But what I wanted to tell you, Dad, is how much I’ve changed since that day. How much better I am. How much stronger and darker and more Mexican I am. Matter of fact, just today I knocked some kid out.

As a kid he used to have this crazy recurring dream: Some blur of a hooded black man was chasing him through a dark cemetery. […] Finally he’d leap at Uno’s feet like a football player, drag him down by his ankles. Pinned to the ground, Uno would look up at where the guy’s face should have been, but there was no face. There was only this huge scar, shaped just like Senior’s […].

Watching Randy run a hand through his short sandy-blond hair, Danny shook his head. The way his dad might. Of course, he thought, a white guy.

Nothing hypes him up more than when people are watching him. Especially white people. In every other part of life they run shit, just like his old man says, but not when it comes to sports.

His skin is dark like his grandma’s sweet coffee, but his insides are as pale as the cream she mixes in. Danny holds the pencil above the paper, thinking: I’m a white boy among Mexicans, and a Mexican among white boys.

What up, girl? Your boy can’t get no invite? This movie’s only for full-on Mexicans? They can’t let nobody in if he got a drop of brother?

Man, I ain’t never gonna make it to Oxnard. Shit ain’t meant to be.

Ernesto steps through the bedroom door and stands over Uno, fists clenched. “And next time you don’t put the trash out I throw your black ass out with it, you hear?”

We all start out believing we can do anything. Even Mexican kids that grow up here. But at some point we lose it. It totally disappears. Like me, for example. Why is that?