Johnny's Struggle With My Father

Danny faces fitful interior struggle with his father’s side of the family. He feels weird that his grandmother was praising him for being a good student and his talents. He feels so awkward because from the environment others grow up in, everyone praises you for the bad boy things you do. Now being praised for being good is something new to him which he hadn’t quite understood yet. Danny feels bad that the adults in the family looks up to him but what he wants are to look up to them as a role model. Danny doesn’t care about his father’s side of the family status or what they do for a living he loved them just for who they were and wanted to be like them. Now he feels guilty because of his talents for being such a good student and able to speak English and what not. On page 47 (2) “Having the whole family
Up there, Mexican people do under-the-table yard work and hide out in the hills because they’re in San Diego illegally. Only other people on Leucadia’s campus who share his shade are the lunch-line ladies, the gardeners, the custodians. But whenever Danny comes down here, to National City—where his dad grew up, where all his aunts and uncles and cousins still live—he feels pale.”

Not only does Danny feel pale in the hood, but he often feels clueless since he speaks only a tiny bit of Spanish and understands only half the jokes that his relatives share in their “random mix of Spanish and English.” What’s more, “they know he doesn’t quite have the whole picture,” and they mistakenly think this will protect him.

Similarly, in Mexican Whiteboy, Danny is a good enough baseball player to be scouted for college and the minor leagues, yet he is taunted by teammates at his school. While in National City, Danny hones his pitching by practicing with the best street baseball player in the neighborhood, tough Uno who is half black and half