The No-Guitar Blues

Gary Soto was born to Manuel and Angie Soto on April 12, 1952, in Fresno, California, as the second of three children. The family was working class and lived in lower-income areas of the city. Soto’s parents worked in the agricultural industry in the San Joaquin Valley, and at five years old, his father died in a workplace accident at the Sun-Maid Raisin Company. Soto was devastated, and his mother was left to raise Gary and his siblings on her own.

After Soto’s father’s death, Soto and his mother, siblings, and grandparents took agricultural or factory jobs to make ends meet. For Soto’s family, education was not emphasized; survival was. Soto did not particularly excel in school, although he did develop an affinity for books and spent many hours reading in the school library. This is where Soto’s love of literature and writing began. After high school, he attended Fresno City College, where he was captivated by poetry. He eventually transferred to California State University, Fresno, where he took poetry classes and eventually graduated with a BA in English. He later earned an MFA in creative writing from the University of California, Irvine.

Soto married Carolyn Oda in 1975, with whom he has a daughter, Mariko Heidi. He began teaching Chicano studies at the University of California, Berkeley, where he taught for over 15 years. During this time, he also began writing poetry, publishing his first volume, The Elements of San Joaquin, in 1977. He followed this up with The Tale of Sunlight in 1978, and many novels, short stories, and poems followed. His background and upbringing are deeply ingrained in his characters, settings, and plots. Much of his poetry and many short stories feature the daily grind common to the working-class Chicano experience; regarding his work, he said, “I’m not a cheerleader. I’m one who provides portraits of people in the rush of life” (“FAQ.” Gary Soto, 2008). His work is part of the Chicano Literature movement, which emerged alongside social and political activism in Chicano communities beginning in the 1940s. Chicano literature is noted for its use of Spanglish and incorporation of details and themes relevant to Mexican American life. His contemporaries in this movement include Sandra Cisneros (The House on Mango Street), Ana Castillo (The Mixquiahuala Letters), and Ernesto Galarza (Barrio Boy).

Soto has been widely acknowledged for his contributions to both Chicano literature and the field of Chicano studies. His awards include the Hispanic Heritage Award for Literature, the PEN Center West Book Award, and the Tomás Rivera Prize. Soto is particularly revered in his hometown of Fresno, where an elementary school is named after him and Fresno City College maintains the Gary Soto Literary Museum.