Coconut

The lives of a Mexican-American family living in Los Angeles' San Fernando Valley during the turbulent 1960's and 1970's are the focus of Coconut: Brown on the Outside, White on the Inside. Despite living a middle class life, "The Rodrigos"have to endure terms like "wetback" and "beaner"- even though they don't speak Spanish. To top it off, their daughter is a Chicano rights activist who is mixing with the wrong group of militants; their sister-in-law suffers at the hands of an abusivehusband; and their precocious son is gifted and headed for the Ivy League, only his parents don't have a clue what "gifted" means and are afraid of him deserting "la familia." Sure, he could be one of the 8% of Latinos to graduate from collegeduring that time - if racism, marginalization and his parents don't extinguish his dream first."Coconut" takes us back to a time when everything was "groovy," and bell bottoms, brown power and disco collided with Civil Rights, earthquakes and the quest to be accepted as an American.If you've ever been called a "coconut," "banana" or "Oreo," this novel will leave you laughing, crying and better understanding what racism and life were like for people of color then - and why we are who we are today.