Julio "Chino" Mercado

Chino is the first-person narrator and main character of Bodega Dreams. He is a young Puerto Rican/Ecuadoran man living in Spanish Harlem with his wife, Blanca, who is pregnant with the couple's first child, and attending Hunter College in hopes of establishing a successful and stable life for himself and his family. Chino provides background for himself and some of the other characters through flashbacks, in which the reader learns that life in Spanish Harlem has been difficult; decent housing is scarce and street fights are common among young men. Chino explains that his nickname came from his eagerness to fight and the fact that he looks vaguely Chinese ("because kung fu movies were very popular at the time" (8)). Chino also recalls the white teachers at his junior high school treating the Latinx students with disdain, but he did not give up on education as...