book but not what I thought it would be
Story : for a book about coming out and being a gay Mexican, the book has very little to do with that topic.
I was kind of hoping/expecting some sort of section in the book where he has to confront his dad but that never happened :/ it is very well written and a downer but don't expect too much about his homosexual life in a Mexican society.
Characters : Rigoberto is a lost kid, He talks about his life, the past and his current and its a real downer, He was lost then and he is lost until the very end,
Final Words : If you're interested in knowing the struggles and pains of being among a giant Mexican family, trying to make it in the US, moving back when things get tough, then this is a good read.
It feels very real and you can easily picture yourself in that situation, I do wish it was longer, so it can get to the stuff that I wanted answered but maybe it never happened because sadly, homosexuality within the Mexican society is still not quite acceptable, especially back then.
.out ofThis was a great book, I loved how the frame of the trip to Michoacan easily slipped between the current travels and the memories of the past.
The action is quick, but suddenly slows to dwell on these beautiful sentences that remind of us of Rigoberto's poetic sense.
And Rigoberto's honesty, his willingness to take us to every keyhole of his life, is touching, This was an interesting book, but I felt as if portions of the story were left out, I wanted to know more of why this boy seemed to blame everything on his father, A father that by no means was perfect, but there seemed to be something missing, Most memoirs are told be an unbiased narrator, of course, but it didn't seem to be open even to himself, which I believe kept the reader at a distance.
less This books was absolutely marvelous, A must read for everyone, This memoir is a painful and beautiful display of a MexicanAmericans coming out, It was a wonderful read, however the emotions that Rigoberto Gonzalez makes the reader feel are gutwrenching, This story perfectly blends the pressures of race, class, and sexuality, displaying his desires and longing for love and acceptance.
This is a brutally honest story and the relationships seen here are violent and abusive, giving the “butterfly boy” a very complex identity.
Gonzalez makes wonderful use of metaphors, leading to very vivid and heartbreaking images,
By Alexandra Rodgers
simple, honest language discusses a gay man's three day long bus trip home with his father from the US to their hometown in Mexico.
not the worst, but far from fantastic,this was for school and it was okay lol It's difficult to find anything more appropriate to say about this book than the first few words on the dust jacket: it is "heartbreaking, poetic, and intensely personal.
" González, a young gay Chicano who has escaped his migrant
farmworker family to attend college at U, C. Riverside, finds himself with an older, violent lover, As he struggles to make sense of his past and his present, González tries leaving the lover, making a trip with his father to visit his maternal grandparents in Mexico.
González shares with us his most intimate thoughts about his turbulent relationship with his father and paternal grandfather his abiding love for the mother who died when he was young and his painful ongoing attempts to forgive himself for the things that have happened in his life and to figure out who he is going to be from this point on.
The book was published when González was, but the story ends while he is still in his's, and the voice feels authentic for that age.
I was thrilled to discover that González is now a successful and recognized author and teacher, as well as a mentor to younger writers.
Clearly, he found a way out of the torment this book describes, and has been able to use it to enrich the lives of others.
It's a rich, powerful comingofage story, a really beautifully written but heartbreaking memoir, Butterfly Boy is a comingofage memoir of writer, Rigoberto Gonzalez, This memoir describes his own childhood up to the point of his early twenties as a Chicano Mariposa, or basically a gay Mexican kid.
He was born into a poor family, his parents had managed to see his birth in the U, S. and tried to remained there for his first few years, With financial problems increasing, they move back to Mexico, living under his paternal grandfather's home with other extended family members.
His household was cramped, loud and very abusive as Gonzalez's grandfather would often tear them all down or threaten to beat up anybody on a daily basis.
His own Dad is not much help, as his father is careless with the money he earns and drinks too much.
While his mother does most of the discipling, Rigoberto does share closer memories with her until her premature death from sudden poor health.
Much of his teenage years were spent on developing his academic skills, as much of his family is illiterate.
Long before puberty, the author soon discovers his attractions to other males, And early on, he spawned many flings with both boys from his school and older men on the grape fields.
He hints at due to the lack of fatherly affection in his life as one of the reasons why he started entering, a rather dysfunctional relationship with an older man when he started college.
Since his mother's death, he enters more phases of unhappiness as his father left him to start a new family and his grandfather becoming unsupportive of his education.
Very few relatives he can say he has a decent relationship with, As time moved on, he learns more of his family history and struggles with his own sexuality as he aims to escape all his troubles by living on campus.
At which, he new life earns him more freedom, yet he still has moments of missing his family,
This memoir is an inside look of someone who had some of the worst experiences brought onto to them.
The author doesn't shy away from much of the details nor does he look over a lot of the family abuse he suffered from while he reminisces of his past life.
But it is from these memories and broken relationships that he finally realizes his individual identity, No longer feeling as much ashamed as regretful of some of his past actions, he finds some courage to stand up to his abusive lover and leaves him by the end of the book.
Though the writing is flat out more tellall of his upbringing, there is some poetic tone in the writing that captures the helplessness the author felt during his crisis moments, yet shows some hope for himself as he recollects lost memories.
While the ending left more to say about his background, I am sure there is more to tell from this gifted writer as he has written many more memoirs following after this one.
Touching and full of honesty
I enjoyed this book so much, I relate to the parental dynamics, and fully appreciate the honesty in homosexuality with the Hispanic culture, Well done and recommend to anyone looking for a real perspective on identity, race, and sexual struggles, I loved it, thank you for your story, damn there is a noble tradition in memoir writing, a tradition that is basically never violated, and that tradition is that you have to leave the reader with something that is not abject misery.
however much travail and pain you go through, there must be something at the end that is good and solid and a glimmer of hope.
Butterfly Boy does follow the tradition but only just, this book starts off with serious pain and traces a life trajectory of pain, what makes it not a painful book to read is that it's fucking beautiful, i mean, it's gorgeous.
pain marks the narrator's personal story of queerness, and the slow reveal that masochism was built into his queerness from the start.
the extraordinary scenes in which the narrator describes his first sexual experiences with older men are both brutal and tender.
he needs to be owned, and fucked, and abandoned, he doesn't tell us why he doesn't tell us many whys but his life has been hard and poor and fraught with abandonment, and sometimes being owned and fucked is the best love one can get.
there is tremendous longing here, for a mother, for a father, for a lover, for a country, for financial security, for a culture, for belonging.
chicano literature at its finest, repeated border crossings with families spread all over the place, crushing poverty. exploitative labor. rough family loving. cerveza. absent fathers who still love but whose love one doesn't know how to digest, silent but present grandmothers. gonzález doesn't sugarcoat one damn thing, he's always running, and you ache at this running because it's not even remotely good,
the mariposa is both the chicano queer and the restless butterfly, doomed to early death, it keeps on being reborn, but each new birth just lands it in the same miserable patch of dusty desert land.
.