Mexican WhiteBoy

De la Peña, M. (2008). Mexican whiteboy. New York: Delacorte Press. ISBN 978-0-385-73310-6

Why read this book
Danny Lopez has the fastest pitch in Southern California high school baseball, but he can’t control it. His life’s a little out of control, too, torn between an the mostly white preppy high school he attends in San Diego and the Mexican-American community his dad came from and where he’d rather be.

Plot summary
Danny Lopez is 16 years old, a good student, and the owner of the fastest pitch in Southern California high school baseball. But his life’s so miserable he can hardly talk. His Mexican father left a few years back and his white mother is dating a rich white guy who wants them to move in San Francisco. Danny’s about the only non-white kid in his preppy high school, and he doesn’t have any friends there. He’d love to play baseball, but his fast pitch is so wild the coach told him to forget it. So Danny decides to spend the summer with his dad’s family in National City, a mostly Mexican-American town south of San Diego.

Danny’s cousin Sofia is cool. She likes Danny even though he hardly ever has a word to say. She introduces him to all her friends in the neighborhood, including Uno, an African American guy about Danny’s age. Uno’s a pretty good baseball player, too, and when he watches Danny practice his pitching by himself on the field in the dilapidated neighborhood park, Uno can’t believe what he sees. Danny’s fast and wild, but Uno is a catcher, and he wants to get in on this scene. Gradually he gains Danny’s confidence and they spend the summer practicing, practicing, practicing. As Danny gains control of his pitching, Uno has an idea. How about if they hustle some of the hot young hitters practicing on other baseball fields around the area? “Twenty bucks says my Danny will strike you out before you can get a hit.” Uno’s scheme has the two of them hitting out all over southern California, hoping to stay out of trouble long enough to pick up some cash.

Critical evaluation
Matt de la Peña captures life in National City with sympathy and authenticity. He neither exploits nor minimizes the challenges of life for young people of color in a poor community. As the relationships develop between Danny, his extended family, and his new friends, it’s easy to see how the support Danny finds there makes it possible for him to confront the challenges in his life, which in addition to disciplining his fast ball include the grief caused his father’s disappearance and his confusion about his biracial identity. The setting of the story becomes an important, well-developed character its own right, a key factor in the protagonist’s resolution of the conflicts within himself. In National City, everyone has Danny’s back, unlike his life in his mostly white, upper-class high school. Through Danny’s story de la Peña challenges the “deficit model” that many outsiders, including teachers, see when they look at families in a Mexican neighborhood. De la Peña’s theme goes beyond that of the young individual rising to the occasion. This is a story about the role that a nurturing community plays in that triumph.

About the author
Matt de la Peña was raised in National City, California, a town between downtown San Diego and the U.S.-Mexican border. His father is Mexican American and his mother is white. He attended the University of the Pacific on a basketball scholarship and earned an MFA in creative writing from San Diego State University. His first novel, Ball Don’t Lie (2005), is about a young basketball player. It has been made into a movie that will be released in November 2009. Mexican WhiteBoy is his second novel. A third novel, We Were Here, will be published in October 2009. De la Peña currently lives in Brooklyn, New York, and teaches creative writing (Bowllan, 2009; Matt’s bio, n.d.).

On the importance of multicultural young-adult literature, de la Peña has said, “Maybe a biracial kid like me can read one of my books and feel like an insider. Or maybe a white kid can read one and learn about somebody who exists outside of his context. But they have to be there, right? Accessible. Because, man, these kids of color, their lives are beautiful, too” (Bowllan, 2009).

Genre: Latino, Sports

Curriculum ties
Ethnic Studies — The issues Mexican WhiteBoy presents about understanding biracial identity and the importance of community in sustaining and supporting young people are both important topics in Ethnic Studies courses.

Book-talking ideas
• Pick up on the biracial issues, which are especially cool now that we have a biracial president.
• Read some of the exchanges among the younger people in National City, focusing on how decent they are to each other.
• To catch the attention of the sports fans, read or describe one of the encounters between Danny and Uno and the other high school baseball players when Danny and Uno are scamming for dollars.

Reading level/interest age
Sports, identity, confusion — Danny’s issues are things that middle school students can relate to. The lack of sex and violence in the novel, the reading level, and the length also place it in within their reach, despite the fact that the School Library Journal review pegs it for Grade 9 and up (Walton-Hadlock, 2008). The novel’s authenticity is likely to make it a good read for high school juniors and seniors, who are Danny’s age, especially Latinos and mixed-race students.

Challenge issues
Mexican WhiteBoy includes romance but not sex, and it includes a few fistfights but no life-threatening or gratuitous violence. Some characters swear a little, but the most likely feature of the book to draw challenges might be the somewhat poor light cast on the white characters. They are never denigrated for their race, but they are mostly portrayed as less sympathetic to Danny than his Mexican-American and African-American friends and family. The most important white character, Danny’s mother, is off in San Francisco with a rich, white potential husband during most of the story, but in the end she realizes that her highest priority is to return to southern California so she can be there for Danny when he returns to high school in the fall.

Responses
• Remind the challenger of the policy (in the case of the San Francisco Public Library) to present “all points of view on current and historical issues. Materials should not be proscribed or removed because of partisan or doctrinal disapproval.”
• Direct the challenger to the list on the author’s Web site of awards and positive reviews the book has received (http://www.mattdelapena.com/MWB.html).

Why I chose to read this book
I found this book while perusing the young-adult section in a Barnes and Noble bookstore. I bought it because of my interest in multicultural literature.

References
Bowllan, A. (2009, August 31). Writers against racism: Matt de la Peña. Bowllan’s Blog. Retrieved September 13, 2009, from http://www.schoollibraryjournal.com/blog/620000062/post/210048421.html

Matt’s bio. (n.d.). Retrieved September 13, 2009, from http://www.mattdelapena.com/bio.html

Mexican WhiteBoy. (n.d.). Retrieved September 14, 2009, from http://www.mattdelapena.com/MWB.html

Walton-Hadlock, M. (2008, September). De la Peña, Matt. School Library Journal (54)9, 177. Retrieved September 14, 2009, from http://web.ebscohost.com.libaccess.sjlibrary.org/ehost/detail?vid=3&hid=105&sid=9dd65b35-b00d-4bff-9d7b-a879d3be1871%40sessionmgr110&bdata=JmxvZ2lucGFnZT1Mb2dpbi5hc3Amc2l0ZT1laG9zdC1saXZl#db=lih&AN=34179113