Living Up the Street - Gary Soto

            This novel is actually a compilation of short stories, which makes this an interesting choice to use in the classroom.  Many of these stories portray Soto's own coming of age in Fresno, California as a boy of Mexican descent.  Within these stories, he focuses on the hardships of various jobs in the working class community; from farms to factories.  There are many comparisons made between the cultural standards of the Latin population compared to those of European-American background. 

            In many of his stories, Soto explains the despair that comes with the lifestyle of the Mexican working conditions and the effects on his own childhood in response.  While Soto points out the shelter and attention the Anglo children are receiving, he contrasts this with the absence of his parents because of tough labor hours; he is then stuck with raising his younger brother while trying to raise himself simultaneously.  In one of the short stories "Looking for Work", Soto explains that he strongly desired to imitate the lifestyle of the television Anglo families, but to no avail.  The strong divide between the depictions of the two cultures is made clear, and by the later chapters that discuss his fears of growing up, Soto mentions that he is afraid of "dying a Mexican death", which entails arduous work without any opportunity to advance out of the difficult job.

            I believe this would be a great book to read with a class because the short story format could open up some great creative options in terms of literary circles.  The class could be divided into groups that would be responsible for one or two of the short stories, where they could do a creative project, or even act out the small scene that they had read from the book.  This format is also helpful for the students to see the narrator's development from story to story.  I found this book to be very intriguing and think it would be definitely effective to use in the classroom.