Barrio Boy Questions and Answers
Barrio Boy
What is the author's experience like on his first day of school in Barrio Boy?
Initially, young Ernesto is scared and intimidated by his new school. Much of his fear stems from the fact that he has a very limited command of the English language, which is the main language of...
Barrio Boy
What actions or details in the story revealed the opposite of what the speaker expected from the school in Barrio Boy?
When Ernesto goes to enroll in school, he and his mother must communicate with the school principal, Miss Hopley, who does not speak Spanish, through a bilingual student interpreter. In those...
Barrio Boy
How do Miss Hopley's actions in paragraphs 7 and 8 of Barrio Boy help Ernesto decide whether the principal is a...
The action that Miss Hopley undertakes that persuades Ernesto to like her is her choice to stand up. The answer might seem peculiar or curious, but if you look at the text, the act of standing...
Barrio Boy
What is the most important idea in the first paragraph of Barrio Boy? Cite specific evidence from the text to support...
The most important idea in the first paragraph of "Barrio Boy" is that America is different from Mazatlan. The story states, "It was a new building, painted yellow, with a shingled roof that was...
Barrio Boy
Who are the main characters in Barrio Boy by Ernesto Galarza?
Here is a list of key characters in Barrio Boy and their roles: Ernesto Galarza is the book's protagonist, an intelligent, resilient, hard-working young man uprooted from a small village in Mexico...
Barrio Boy
What are examples of the technique of speech, actions and interactions of the characters in the story that the author...
Galarza uses dialogue and direct characterization to describe the events of his childhood. Galarza often incorporates dialogue directly into the paragraph when he characterizes someone, such as his...
Barrio Boy
In "Barrio Boy", how did Ernesto and his mother communicate with Miss Hopley, the Principal?
Ernesto and his mother communicate with Miss Hopley with the aid of a student interpreter. After Ernesto and his mother are comfortably settled in her office, Miss Hopley opens a door in the far...
Barrio Boy
In Barrio Boy, what were some of the various reasons that made Ernesto and his family want to stay and then finally...
The desire to stay in the small Mexican village in which Ernesto was born would have been related to familiarity and culture. Life in Jalco was comfortable and familiar to our protagonist and...
Barrio Boy
Look at Ernesto’s description of his new school in California and his old school in mazatlan. What do you notice...
The first thing that Ernesto mentions is the size of the school, which took up a half block and was three stories tall. The wooden building was also new and painted yellow. A specific difference...
Barrio Boy
In the book Barrio Boy, the author uses chronological order to reveal the details of the story. Discuss whether the...
Barrio Boy is an autobiography that was written by Ernesto Galarza. It is about the experiences of a Mexican boy who moves from a small village in Mexico to a barrio in Sacramento, California....
Barrio Boy
What is an instance of cause and effect in Barrio Boy?
Throughout his autobiography, Ernesto Garza provides numerous examples of causes and effects that altered his life. Garza explains how widespread violence and poverty shaped his childhood in...
Barrio Boy
In Barrio Boy, how does Ernesto Galarza develop a personal philosophy of virtues (when, where, and how)?
A personal philosophy of values can be defined as an individual making personal choices to define right and wrong behavior as opposed to external laws or culture determining right and wrong for the...
Barrio Boy
What motivates Ernesto Garza to undertake the mission in Barrio Boy?
In part 1 of Ernesto Galarza’s autobiography Barrio Boy, Galarza writes about going on missions. While the term missions makes what Galarza is doing dramatic and thrilling, what these missions...
Barrio Boy
Who is the narrator of the story "Barrio Boy" by Ernesto Galarza?
Ernesto Galarza is the author and narrator of the book, Barrio Boy. Ernesto begins the narration of his story by recounting his early childhood in a tiny village in rural Mexico. He vividly...
Barrio Boy
Galarza describes the setting and what it is like to live in a mountain village. An old man tells him, “the forest...
In the book Barrio Boy, author Ernesto Galarza describes the culture of the rural mountain village of Jalcocotán, one of the oldest towns in the Mexican state of Nayarit. Ernesto Galarza writes his...
Barrio Boy
What different kinds of socio-cultural tensions are there in the book Barrio Boy?
Barrio Boy is in large part the story of Ernesto's immigration to the United States and his attempts at maintaining connections to his heritage while adjusting to US society. Given this, one might...
Barrio Boy
What evidence is there that Miss Hopley does not speak Spanish?
In Barrio Boy, Miss Hopley is the principal of the Lincoln Elementary School. Ernesto describes her as a "giant," as she is rather tall, but she is also very kind and friendly. We learn that she...
Barrio Boy
What are the fictional and nonfictional elements used by Galarza in this story?
Mexican American literature struggled to be published before the beginning of the 1970s. It was only in this time that the genre of nonfictional Mexican American literature finally began to find...
Barrio Boy
“Barrio Boy” and “No Gumption”. How are these two memoirs similar? How are they different? In what ways are the...
The two memoirs are similar because the center on boyhood experiences that include poverty and hard work; they are different in locations and family situation, and the authors are different...
Barrio Boy
How does Ernesto compare American customs to Mexican customs in part 4 of Barrio Boy?
For Ernesto and his family—indeed, for Mexican immigrants to the United States in general—the customs they observe in their new country are initially quite strange. To be fair, Ernesto acknowledges...