by Jose Antonio Villarreal

The Mexican Revolution (1910-21) produced an environment of severe instability and violence. These conditions led to a massive emigration from Mexico to the United States of people seeking work. Many of the immigrants found work in California's agriculture industry as farm laborers. The American-born children of these workers were often torn between two cultures. Jose Antonio Villarreal is an American- born child of immigrant parents. His novel Pocho dramatizes the struggles of the Rubios, an immigrant family that closely resembles his own.

Events in History at the Time the Novel Takes Place

The Mexican Revolution, 1910-21. Many factors led to the Mexican Revolution of 1910. More than thirty years under the dictatorship of Porfirio Diaz had brought the country into the modem industrial age, but there was a price paid for this progress. The chasm between the rich and the poor grew ever wider, and...