It's April 1969, and fourteen-year-old Yolanda Sahagun can hardly wait to see her favorite brother, Chuy, newly returned from Vietnam. But when he arrives at the Welcome Home party the family has prepared in his honor it's clear that the war has changed him. The transformation of Chuy is only one of the challenges that Yolanda and the rest of her family face. This powerful coming-of-age novel, winner of the 1999 Chicano/Latino Literary Contest, is a touching and funny account of a summer that is still remembered as a crossroads in American life. Yolanda and her brothers and sisters learn...
It's April 1969, and fourteen-year-old Yolanda Sahagun can hardly wait to see her favorite brother, Chuy, newly returned from Vietnam. But when he ...
Having left her much-loved San Diego barrio, Yolanda Sahagun is now living in the university dorms when a series of events - her mother dies and her father sells their home - forces her to re-examine her life. Yolanda visits her parents' hometown of El Grullo, Mexico, struggling to understand the ghosts in her life - her mother, her father, and her seemingly idyllic childhood. She fears losing herself in the disintegration of the family. For Yolanda, her father is her enemy (or so she thinks), and in the course of the novel we see him at his best and worst, and we see Yolanda at her best and...
Having left her much-loved San Diego barrio, Yolanda Sahagun is now living in the university dorms when a series of events - her mother dies and her f...