In 1985 an ambitious young Mexican-American from California's rural San Joaquin Valley became one of the few Latinos to enter America's most prestigious university. The lessons Ruben Navarette, Jr., learned as he journeyed from his middle-class surroundings to an exclusive 350-year-old world of privilege would forever alter his life.

With intelligence and grace, Navarrette chronicles his experiences at Harvard, where he confronted questions of identity and ethnicity, and wrestled with the need to reconcile his values and opinions with the expectations of his family, his race, and society...