Mexican WhiteBoy: Uno Gets Another Drunken Tongue-Lashing Summary & Analysis

1. At Uno’s house, Ernesto screams at Uno for neglecting to take out the trash. He uses racial slurs and tells Uno to listen since Ernesto is “the man of the house.” Uno doesn’t respond. He smells tequila, and he knows Ernesto sometimes hits him when he’s drunk—Uno is afraid of fighting back and going to jail himself. When Ernesto leaves, Uno’s mom enters the room crying and tells Uno to do what Ernesto says. She tries to hug him, but he dodges her and leaves the house. Uno’s been drinking too, and he laughs as he walks down the street, thinking that everything seems fake and that his life in National City won’t matter once he’s in Oxnard.

2. Uno is shocked to find Danny in the liquor store. They haven’t seen each other since they were at Morse High. Uno doesn’t understand why Danny is always alone and why he dresses differently, since he’s “Mexican as anyone else in the ‘hood.” It's two a.m., and Uno says he was at a party with Chico drinking Hennessy. He sees Danny digging into his arm and slaps his shoulder to stop him. They pick up a sports magazine that Kyle Sorenson is in, and Uno predicts that Kyle is going to be rich. Danny tries to pay Uno twenty dollars because he didn’t strike out Carmelo, but Uno refuses the money, saying Danny was just having a bad day. Plus, Uno doesn’t need the money since he found a job at a restaurant. Uno invites Danny to check out a special place he knows.

3. Uno brings Danny to a place by the train tracks. A while ago, he painted a line on the ground a distance away from a railroad crossing sign. His game is that he makes a wish and tries to hit the sign from the line with rocks. If the majority hits the sign, the wish will come true. Uno wishes to go to Oxnard and hits the sign three times. As Danny thinks about what his wish is, Uno thinks that if he saw Danny in school dressed in his Vans and collared shirt, he would never talk to him. Danny wishes to see Danny's dad in Mexico. He hits the center of the sign perfectly five times in a row.

4. Uno inspects the railroad sign, impressed with Danny’s work. He asks Danny what he knows about Danny's dad, but Danny doesn’t have any answers. Looking at Danny’s mutilated left arm, Uno is baffled—it seems to him that Danny has a good life. Uno says that he could turn his life around if he goes to Oxnard, and he might play baseball for the school. He asks Danny why his pitching was off at Morse High, and again, Danny doesn’t have an answer. Uno considers that maybe Danny didn’t pitch well because Uno isn’t a good enough catcher.   Uno says that one day he wants to watch the sun rise over the prominent recycling plant in the city—Senior says he did it once. Then Uno and Danny hear a train coming and rush under the bridge.

5. Under the bridge, the boys each embrace a pillar, squeezing around them with their whole bodies. As the train screams across the bridge just above, Uno and Danny shake as its intense power passes through their bodies. After the train passes, the boys are invigorated. Uno says that he feels like he’s absorbed the train’s power and can use it to fight people. He thinks the train might be an expression of God—that God might be “down here. In regular, everyday stuff.”