Racial Equality

The two families followed in the story are motivated by the need and continually struggle for equality with the more wealthy and educated. While in Mexico, the poor people are given very little opportunity to better themselves, and are treated as undesirables by the upper classes. The Revolution begins when people are locked out of their capital city so that the president can entertain influential foreigners, and the masses rise up against this authority.

In the United States, many of the Mexican people are surprised to find that they are treated the same here. The middle and upper class white population looks at the poor Mexicans as dirty, uneducated, and inferior. When Juan is asked to leave a Greek restaurant just because he is a Mexican, he is surprised to be treated as, "dog shit, down here, along the border." (Chapter 14, p 232)

Juan is continually motivated to...