Living Up the Street
# Living Up the Street

Part of a series on :

Chicanos and Mexican Americans :

Terms

Identity

Chola/o

La Raza

Pachuca

Pachuco

Pinta/o

Xicanx

Concepts

Anti-Mexican sentiment :

History

Early-American Period

Josefa Segovia

Las Gorras Blancas

Mexican–American War

Mutualista

San Elizario Salt War

Sonoratown

Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo

Pre-Chicano Movement

1917 Bath riots

Bisbee Deportation

Bloody Christmas

Bracero program

California agricultural strikes

Cantaloupe strike of 1928

Citrus Strike of 1936

La Matanza

Mexican Repatriation

Operation Wetback

Plan de San Diego

Porvenir Massacre

Sleepy Lagoon trial

Zoot Suit Riots

Chicano Movement

Aztlán

Black-brown unity

Brown Berets

Católicos por La Raza

Centro Cultural

Chicanismo

Chicano Moratorium

Colegio César Chávez

CFMN

Conferencia de Mujeres

CRP

East L.A. walkouts

Hijas de Cuauhtémoc

Huelga schools

Land grant struggle

Las Adelitas de Aztlán

Los Siete de la Raza

Los Seis de Boulder

MANA

MAYO

MEChA

Occupation of Catalina Island

PCUN

Plan Espiritual de Aztlán

Plan de Santa Bárbara

Quinto Sol

Raza Unida Party

United Farm Workers

Post-Chicano Period

1985–1987 cannery strike

1992 Drywall Strike

2019 El Paso shooting

Abolish ICE

Arizona SB 1070

Castro 2020

Chicano Art Exhibit

DACA

Great American Boycott

IRCA

Farah strike

Justice for Janitors

Murder of Selena

Proposition 187

South Central Farm :

Culture

Language

Abrazos, no balazos

Caló

Chicano English

Chicano names

Órale

Food

New Mexican cuisine

Tex-Mex cuisine

Mexican-American cuisine

Music

Chicano rap

Chicano rock

Chicano soul

Tejano music

Symbols

Cal-Style VW

Homies

Lowrider

Lowrider bicycle

Mexican-American folklore

Pancho Claus

Zoot suit :

Literature

Literature

Chicana literature

Chicano literature

Chicano poetry

Autobiographical

Always Running

Living Up the Street

Who Would Have Thought It?

Novels

Bless Me, Ultima

Caballero

Desert Blood

From This Wicked Patch of Dust

Mexican WhiteBoy

The Dirty Girls Social Club

The House on Mango Street

The Rain God

The Revolt of the Cockroach People

So Far from God

Under the Feet of Jesus

...y no se lo tragó la tierra

Poetry and Short Stories

Emplumada

I Am Joaquin

Moment of Silence

Pensamiento Serpentino

The Moths :

Chicana/o studies

Fields

Chicana feminism

Chicanafuturism

Organizations

MAS Programs, Tucson

NACCS

UCLA Chicano Studies Research Center

Texts

Borderlands/La Frontera: The New Mestiza

Brown, Not White

The Church in the Barrio

This Bridge Called My Back

Theory

Barrioization

Coyolxauhqui imperative

Gringo justice

Nahui Ollin

Nepantla

New tribalism

Rasquachismo

Spiritual activism

Vergüenza

Youth control complex :

Visual art

Visual Art

Chicana art

Chicano art

Chicano cinema

Paño

Tortilla art

Art Collectives

Asco

Culture Clash

East Los Streetscapers

Los Four

Mujeres Muralistas

Teatro Campesino

Royal Chicano Air Force

Art organizations

Centro de Arte Público

Galería de la Raza

Mission Cultural Center for Latino Arts

Precita Eyes

Self Help Graphics & Art

Locations

Balmy Alley

Chicano Park

Estrada Courts

Great Wall of Los Angeles :

Law

Supreme Court cases

Botiller v. Dominguez

Hernandez v. Texas

San Antonio I.S.D. v. Rodriguez

Espinoza v. Farah Manufacturing Co.

U.S. v. Brignoni-Ponce

Plyler v. Doe

Medellín v. Texas

Flores-Figueroa v. U.S.

Leal Garcia v. Texas

Mendez v. Westminster

Bernal v. Fainter

Perez v. Brownell

DHS v. Regents of the Univ. of Cal.

Federal Court cases

Madrigal v. Quilligan :

Population

Population by City

Arizona (Tucson)

California (Los Angeles)

Illinois (Chicago)

Michigan (Detroit)

Nebraska (Omaha)

Texas

Dallas–Fort Worth

Houston

Multiethnic

Blaxicans

Californios

Nuevomexicanos

Tejanos

Indigenous Mexican Americans

Punjabi Mexican Americans :

Lists

Chicano films

Chicano poets

Chicano rappers

Mexican Americans

Writers

Bibliography :

United States portal

Category

Index :

vte :

Living up the Street is a book written by Gary Soto. It was published in 1985. The book is a collection of short stories, recollections of growing up Chicano in Fresno, California. It won a Before Columbus Foundation's American Book Award in 1985.

In these "narrative recollections" poet Gary Soto reflects on his Mexican American childhood in the ethnically mixed laboring-class neighborhoods of Fresno, California. His was a life lived at the margins—economic margins and cultural margins. In these recollections of family relationships, youthful mischief-making, farm and factory jobs, adolescent rebellion, and the transition to professional writing Soto subtly and humorously draws attention to the discontinuities between the lives of Chicanos and Anglos.

## Stories

"The Beauty Contest" describes how young Gary entered his younger half-brother in a playground beauty contest. "Strong build, a chipped tooth, half Mexican and half white--he might win, I thought." (43) Gary knows that only a lighter complexioned child could meet the Anglo standards of beauty that prevail. In fact, he has internalized those standards himself: " . . . we were awed by the blond and fair skinned kids in good clothes. They looked beautiful, I thought." We are led to infer that the Anglo contestants come from a world of comfort and parental attentiveness whereas Gary has been left on his own to tend to his brother while his parents are away at their work of manual labor.

In "Looking for Work" Gary wanted to imitate the Anglo families in the television programs that he continually watched. He tried to convince his siblings to wear shoes to dinner and improve their appearance so that "white people would like us more." (26) In "1,2,3," Soto reconstructs the shocking vindictiveness of an Anglo father after his young daughter falls off of a swing that is being pushed by Gary's Chicana friend, Rosie. Soto ends this piece, "I wanted to . . . explain that it was a mistake; that we also fell from the swings and the bars and got hurt . . . ." (15)

Soto foregrounds violence as an integral part of his childhood. The lead-off sketch, "Being Mean," recounts childhood pranks involving the setting of fires and abuse of pets. But this violence also included and was a response to verbal violence from others, such as being called "dirty Mexicans." (3) "Bloodworth" chronicles the evolution from fisticuffs--"all through elementary and junior high school, it was bob and weave, jab and stick" (95)--to the more controlled violence of the high school wrestling team.

Soto tells of his back-breaking farm laboring and factory jobs in "One Last Time" and "Black Hair." There is no romance in these episodes, "no grace" (124) in the miserable conditions, and no comfort. Rather, there is always the fear he will forever have to "work Mexican hours, and in the end die a Mexican death, broke and in despair." (123)

Gary is the main character who lives in Fresno in 1957. He has an older brother and younger sister. His mom works most of the times and the dad just died at work which devastated Gary. Gary has his normal life as a child like going to school, playing in an alley, playing baseball and working. Gary always has a crush on a girl and has to act cool but always screws it up. Gary later runs away where he goes to a small town and work. he finds a job that refurbishes and sells tires and is hired. He has two other friends who work there a lot and one night stole goods from one of his friends family but immediately is filled with guilt. He returns the goods he stole and buys a bus ticket but while on the bus, he doesn't want to leave so he refunds to stay with the gang.

