Buried Onions

Use these questions or activities to help gauge students’ familiarity with and spark their interest in the context of the work, giving them an entry point into the text itself.

Short Answer

1. Consider what you know about Mexican American communities in the US. In which states do many of these communities reside? What are some of the challenges that Mexican American communities commonly experienced in the late 20th century?

Teaching Suggestion: This question situates students with the setting of the novel. Eddie is Mexican, and most of his surrounding community in Fresno includes a significant Hispanic demographic. Furthermore, most of Eddie’s observations or concerns regard race, and the majority of his interactions are with Hispanic people living in Fresno. The resources below provide some information on the Latino experience in California, as well as challenges that Latino/Hispanic communities often face in the US.

• The University of California Los Angeles’s Latino Policy and Politics Institute shares “15 Facts About Latino Well-Being in California.”
• The Public Policy Institute in California provides a brief overview of Hispanic demographics (2022) in California; students might theorize about the state’s Hispanic population in the years since the setting of the novel.

2. How does poverty shape communities? For example, how does growing up in an impoverished area transform a person’s thinking about her/his future goals and abilities in life?