http://www.notablebiographies.com/news/Sh-Z/Soto-Gary.html
I posted this because it provides much more information than the biography on Gary Soto’s Official Website. It describes his life in Fresno as the son of farm laborers, his role as an ambassador for the United Farm Workers of America, his education, the reason he writes, and the various genres he writes in.
Trace
I was wondering about the book, "Pacific Crossing" (the sequel to Taking Sides), and how that book was such a departure from life in the Mission and the cultural identity of being Mexican-American. "Pacific Crossing" has the two main characters practicing Kempo and going to Japan as exchange students. I found out according to the interview I posted earlier, Gary Soto himself practiced the Japanese martial art of Kempo Karate. And according to this biography, his wife is Japanese-American. Being Japanese-American myself, I now see where Soto is coming from.
ReplyDeleteIt is interesting to learn in "Pacific Crossing" that Lincoln and his mom moved back to San Francisco less than a year after they left for the suburbs. Lincoln must have been very unhappy in the suburbs because he became moody, stopped doing his homework, played music so loudly that the neighbors complained, and got into fights at Columbus Junior High School. Lincoln and his mom did not return to the Mission, though. They moved to Noe Valley, a neighborhood bordering the Mission, "away from the rumbles, break-ins, graffitied walls, loud barroom music, cholos in wino shoes, veteranos with tattooed arms and pinkish scars, and the scuttling litter of Mission and Twenty-fourth." Despite moving to a different neighborhood, Lincoln returned to Franklin Junior High School, where he was happy and improved his grades from C's to A's. Lincoln began studying Shorinji Kempo at the Soto(!) Zen Center in Japantown. There really is a Shorinji Kempo Center in San Francisco's Japantown, which has a Zen philosophy and which seems to be very highly regarded as a place to study martial arts. It is interesting to see how Gary Soto has woven the Japanese part of his family life into his writing.
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