Butterfly Boy: Memories of a Chicano Mariposa (Writing in Latinidad: Autobiographical Voices of U.S. Latinos/as)

Butterfly Boy is a heartbreaking, poetic, and intensely personal memoir that follows the life of Rigoberto González, a first-generation Chicano who trades one life for another only to discover that history and memory are not exchangeable or forgettable.

Growing up among poor migrant Mexican farmworkers, González faces the pressure of coming-of-age as a gay man in a culture that prizes machismo.

Despite facing numerous challenges, including the loss of his mother at a young age and an abiding sense of cultural estrangement, González finds solace in writing and ultimately claims his identity at the intersection of race, class, and sexuality.

This moving memoir is a leap of faith that every reader who ever felt like an outsider will immediately recognize.