Buried Onions

by Gary Soto

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Student Question

What quotes from Buried Onions demonstrate the injustices Eddie experienced?

Quick answer:

Quotes from Buried Onions that demonstrate the injustices Eddie experienced include when Mr. Stiles's truck is stolen while Eddie is using it (chapter two, pages 29-30), and Eddie is subsequently arrested due to racial profiling (chapter six, page 104). Eddie also faces violence from Samuel and Angel (chapter eight, pages 131-133) and struggles with poverty, doing anything for money (chapter one, pages 16-17).

Expert Answers

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Eddie is the protagonist of Gary Soto's novel Buried Onions. Eddie is the victim of the realities of his lower class existence in the Mexican-American barrio of Fresno. He is the victim of crime in chapter two (see pages 29-30) when Mr. Stiles's truck is stolen from the front of his apartment. Eddie had been using the truck to go to the dump for Mr. Stiles. He had only stopped at his apartment for a minute to get a drink and change shirts.

Eddie is the victim of violence in his encounter with Samuel and Angel (see chapter eight, pages 131-133). He is convinced that Angel is after him, because he would not help him go after Jesús's murderer, and he knows that Angel has a gun. Eddie is also plagued by the young cholo Samuel and fights the two of them in chapter eight. While Soto never overtly refers to racism in the novel, it is implicit throughout, most notably in the reaction of Mr. Stiles. After Eddie discovers the truck while he and José are having breakfast, he phones Mr. Stiles, apologizing and telling him the whereabouts of the truck. For his efforts, Eddie is turned in by Mr. Stiles and arrested because it was alleged a Mexican-American boy of Eddie's age had assaulted an old man at a laundromat and the truck was involved (chapter six, page 104).

Eddie is definitely the victim of poverty. There are examples throughout the novel. In chapter one, he is willing to do virtually anything for a dollar when he meets an old man who needs a piece of insulation moved (pages 16-17). Lack of opportunity surrounds Eddie. Some of his friends are dead. Some, like Angel and Lupe, are gangbangers involved in petty theft and violence. Only José has slipped out of the cycle of poverty by joining the Marines. So too, Eddie joins the military in order to pursue whatever opportunity he can find in the armed forces after failing or being denied in his pursuit of an honest living on the streets of Fresno (chapter nine, page 142).

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