Friendship

At the opening of the novel, Pancho Sanchez doesn't have a friend in the world, nor does he believe himself to be worthy of one. When he thinks back on his life, he realizes that the only friends he ever had were his mates down at the boxing ring. They weren't friends that he would share his hopes and dreams with, but they were the men he saw most frequently, and in his mind, that constituted friendship. Perhaps because Pancho has never had real friends, he struggles to relate to people his own age. When he first arrives at St. Anthony's he can't believe that he and D.Q. - who comes from a wealthy, white family - would have anything in common, which is one of the many reasons why Pancho is initially standoffish. Rather than try to make new friends at St. Anthony, Pancho continues living...