The candy vendor's boy and other stories

by Beatriz Eugenia De La Garza

The Tales in The Candy Vendor's Boy and Other Stories make up a mosaic of lives of very real people who struggle with forces not of their own making: war, exile, migration, poverty, racism and political conflict. Each story is a sensitive and caring portrait of living, breathing and agonizing human beings engaged in a quest to find a home and an identity in an environment that is often hostile to them. The candy vendor's boy, the kid from the Alamo and all the other protagonists of this well-crafted and unified collection of fiction are part of the fabric and the history of this land, and it is time that they are recognized and accepted not just in their own neighborhoods but also in the history books and in the collective identity of American society as a whole.