Gary Soto
Gary Soto is a prominent American author born on April 12, 1952, in Fresno, California, to parents of Mexican descent. His early life was marked by hardship, particularly after the death of his father when he was just five years old, leading him to be raised by his mother and grandparents in a Spanish-speaking neighborhood. Soto's experiences growing up in poverty and his cultural heritage heavily influence his writing, which often explores themes of identity, family, and the struggles faced by marginalized communities. His first poetry collection, *The Elements of San Joaquin* (1977), highlights the lives of migrant workers and the challenges of the Chicano experience in 1950s Fresno. Soto has also written autobiographical narratives, such as *Living up the Street* (1985), which won the American Book Award, where he tackles issues like racism through personal anecdotes. In addition to poetry and prose, he has authored children's literature, including *Chato's Kitchen* (1995), and a play titled *Novio Boy* (2006). Soto's work is recognized for its cultural authenticity and its ability to resonate with readers of all backgrounds, showcasing the universal nature of growing up and finding one's identity.
On this Page
Subject Terms
Gary Soto
- Born: April 12, 1952
- Birthplace: Fresno, California
Author Profile
Gary Soto was born to American parents of Mexican heritage and grew up in the Spanish-speaking neighborhoods of Fresno, California. Soto’s father died when Soto was five years old. He and his siblings were raised by his mother and grandparents. After graduating from high school in 1970, Soto attended the University of California at Irvine, where he later earned a Master of Fine Arts degree.
Soto’s life provides much of the material for his writing. He uses his cultural heritage and neighborhood traditions as the setting for stories and poems about growing up poor and Chicano. In The Elements of San Joaquin (1977), his first collection of poetry and a winner of the International Poetry Forum, he focuses on Fresno, California in the 1950s. He chronicles the lives of migrant workers and other oppressed people caught in cycles of poverty and violence. His second collection, The Tale of Sunlight (1978), was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize in Poetry. In a later poetry collection, Who Will Know Us (1990), Soto draws again on his life. In the poem “That Girl,” for example, he is the young “Catholic boy” at the public library, while in “Another Time,” he is an adult contemplating the death of his father.
Soto turns to prose with Living up the Street: Narrative Recollections (1985), a volume of twenty-one autobiographical stories that won the American Book Award. His talent in this work lies in the small details. Soto is concerned with the commonplace, seemingly unnoteworthy events. In this book, he explores racism through vignettes from his own life. Rather than tackle racism in the abstract, he instead deals with it directly. In one example, he writes of a fight after being called a “dirty Mexican.” He describes his anger after a White child wins a beauty contest. In the memoir What Poets Are Like: Up and Down with the Writing Life (2013), Soto provides humorous stories about his own life as a writer and about his peers such as Sherman Alexie and Nora Ephron.
A man of many talents, Soto also writes books for children and young adults, including the chapter book Marisol to accompany the American Girl Doll by the same name. Soto's work for younger audiences explores universal themes such as family life, alienation, and choices we make. His work for younger readers has also won several awards, including the 1999 Author-Illustrator Civil Rights Award from the National Education Association and the Tomas Rivera Book Award in 1997 for his picture book Chato's Kitchen (1995).
Soto also wrote a play, Novio Boy in 2006. In 2014 he wrote the musical In and Out of Shadows about undocumented students raised and educated in the United States. His matter-of-fact use of Spanish expressions as well as his references to the sights and sounds of the Latino community provide young and adult audiences with a sense of cultural identity.
In a 2018 interview, Soto commented on his attention to small details included in his writing. He noted his desire to provide an accurate presentation of the world he grew up in, as others might be able to resonate with his depictions. He also felt that when others levied small expectations on him, or did not expect him to succeed, this became a cause for self-doubt. His remedy was to find others who shared his same passion for poetry.
Perhaps Soto’s greatest attribute is his ability to assert his ethnicity while demonstrating that the experiences of growing up are universal. His bittersweet stories remind his readers of their passages from childhood to adulthood and of their search for identities that began “up the street.”
Bibliography
Armour-Hileman, Vicki. Review of Where Sparrows Work Hard. Denver Quarterly, vol. 17, summer 1982, pp. 154–55.
Cooley, Peter. “Two Young Poets.” Parnassus, vol. 7, fall/winter 1979, pp. 299–311.
De La Fuente, Patricia. “Entropy in the Poetry of Gary Soto: The Dialectics of Violence.” Discurso Literario, vol. 5, no. 1, autumn 1987, pp. 111–20.
Erben, Rudolf, and Ute Erben. “Popular Culture, Mass Media, and Chicano Identity in Gary Soto’s Living up the Street and Small Faces.” MELUS, vol.17, no. 3, fall 1991/1992, pp. 43–52.
"Gary Soto." Poetry Foundation, 2023, www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/gary-soto. Accessed 6 Oct. 2024.
Khokha, Sasha. "Salt, Dirt and Ants: Gary Soto's Poetry of Farm Work." KQED, 24 Apr. 2018,www.kqed.org/news/11663440/salt-dirt-and-ants-gary-sotos-poetry-of-farm-work. Accessed 6 Oct. 2024.
Mason, Michael Tomasek. “Poetry and Masculinity on the Anglo/Christian Border: Gary Soto, Robert Frost, and Robert Hass." The Calvinist Roots of the Modern Era, edited by Aliki Barnstone, et al., UP of New England, 1997.
Munro, Donald. "In His New Musical, Renowned Poet Gary Soto 'Dreams a Dream.'" Fresno Bee. Fresno Bee, 4 Dec. 2014. Accessed 27 Mar. 2015.
Olivares, Julian. “The Streets of Gary Soto.” Latin America Literary Review, vol. 18, no. 35, Jan.-June, 1990, pp. 32–49.
Paredes, Raymund A. “The Childhood Worries, or Why I Became a Writer.” Iowa Review, vol.25, no. 2, spring/summer 1995, pp. 105–15.
---. “Recent Chicano Writing.” Rocky Mountain Review, vol. 41, nos. 1/2, 1987, pp. 124–29.
Soto, Gary. "Why I've Stopped Writing Children's Literature." Huffington Post, 25 Sept. 2013, www.huffpost.com/entry/childrens-literature-writing‗b‗3989751Govjobs password C18J16c16d19r19. Accessed 6 Oct. 2024.
Vasquez, Tina. “Without Preaching or Pandering, ‘Too Many Tamales’ Celebrated Our Culture-and Continues to Make Mexican American Children Feel Seen.” The Counter, 21 Dec. 2021, thecounter.org/too-many-tamales-gary-soto-childrens-book-mexican-american-culture/. Accessed 6 Oct. 2024.