Houston

The entire collection takes place in Houston, and many of the stories are named after the streets or neighborhoods in which they are set. The author depicts the city as racially and ethnically diverse, populated by many recent immigrants (including Raúl and Miguel). However, the reader sees many of the most diverse neighborhoods, like the East End, becoming more and more gentrified as the collection goes on. As Nicolás explains in "Elgin": "Houston is molting. The city sheds all over the concrete. We've got bike shares in the Third Ward, motherf-----g coffee shops way out on Griggs. We've got like four different shacks with n----s hawking tacos, right next to this barber charging sixty for a trim" (202). The point he is making is that white people are moving into all areas of the city, and bringing with them the traits of bourgeois suburbia and driving up...