Esperanza and her mother are forced to leave their life of wealth and privilege in Mexico to go work in the labor camps of Southern California, where they must adapt to the harsh circumstances facing Mexican farm workers on the eve of the Great Depression.

A collection of eleven short stories focusing on the everyday adventures of Hispanic young people growing up in Fresno, California.

Chato decides to throw a "pachanga" for his friend Novio Boy, who has never had a birthday party, but when it is time to party, Novio Boy cannot be found. Listen as you read along with this book and CD set.

A collection of thirteen short stories about the everyday lives of Mexican American young people in California's Central Valley.

"His first-ever collection of stories, Jaime Cortez's Gordo is set in a migrant workers camp near Watsonville, California, in the 1970s. A young boy named Gordo fights back tears underneath a wrestler's mask as he is forced to fight other boys and grow into his father's expectations of manhood. As he comes of age, Gordo learns about sex, poverty, and discovers the wrenching divides between documented and undocumented immigrants. Fat Cookie, high schooler...

These stories follow a migrant family through their circuit, from picking cotton and strawberries to topping carrots-- and back again-- over a number of years.

Arturo and his family and friends share all kinds of experiences living in the barrio of East Los Angeles--reclaiming their names, playing basketball, championing the school librarian, and even starting their own gang.

Juanito accompanies his grandmother to a flea market in southern California, where he helps her and the other vendors and where they enjoy seeing old friends from their Mexican-American community.

When twelve-year-old Manny Maldonado and his friends find a hobo's body near the train tracks that run through their tight-knit San Gabriel valley community, a police officer tries to pin the murder on them.

Offering shelter to a Mexican woman who survived an attack on her life, ex-convict Fahey finds their subsequent relationship threatened by those who would kill the woman for her activism against exploitative factory owners.