This novel teems with numerous local color references to the Mexican community in the early twentieth century. It is also important in that it documents life under the Diaz dictatorship and the forces that made one family migrate to southwestern U.S. It is an invaluable chronicle.

"Barrio Boy" is an important historical document, as it presents through various aspects of local color the Mexican community as it appeared in the early twentieth century. It is also important as a chronicle of the Diaz dictatorship and of the forces that made a family, against bitter odds, migrate to southwestern California.

I have used Galarza's book successfully in many classes I have taught. While there is a lot of apparently "needless" detail if you are looking for some kind of exciting "story" or plot, if you actually read the (very short author's) introduction to the book, you'll realize that Galarza's "point" in writing was to establish what it was like to move from a small pueblo in Mexico to a large US city. As such, there are a lot of details which are not necessarily related to "action" per se, but more a sense of trying to understand new environments, new cultural traditions, new ways of living. And how life in the US affected Mexican migrant families in the early 20th century. If you are looking for an account of Mexican immigration & acculturation that is both personal and subtly historic/sociological, then this is a good book for that.