Joseph Bejarano 9/11/13 WRT 100
Journal #1 I been reading this wonderful book that is based on a true story called, “Burro Genius”. It is about an author named, “Victor Villasenor”, who faced horrible experiences as a child during the 1940’s when discrimination was prevalent. He faced a lot of humiliations and abuse at the hands of his teachers because he was Mexican who only spoke Spanish and treated him like garbage. I would recommend to others to read this book as they would find it to be inspiring, emotional, interesting, and humorous. At the beginning of this book the author talks about him being a writer growing up. People thought his writings were poor because he wasn’t good with the English language. He wrote several books but could not get them published due to wide spread discrimination. He finally was able to get his first book called, “Macho” published. One major fact about this story is that this talented boy who was haunted his entire childhood was able to overcome the obstacles which hindered him and be someone who could fight for his dreams and make them come true. At a very young age Victor Villasenor lost one of his family members, his older brother Joseph, who was very inspiring to Victor. The loss of his brother was a downfall for Victor who was becoming a problem for his family and school. Another major fact was that he was never frightened for being Mexican because his father told him at a very young age that “never be ashamed for being different, be proud about yourself, and to not let others bully you.” When Victor became an author, he started to talk more about the past of his mother who plays a huge role in this story. He loved his mom more than anything, however, Victor was frustrated with his mother, because she believed everything the teachers said about him, even though many of the accusations were not true. He remembered his mother taking him to school for the very first day of kindergarten and Victor didn’t like the school because he felt out of place with the Anglo students. He
