Conflict in Coming-of-Age Narratives: Barrio Boy and No Gumption Anonymous 9th Grade

Both Russell Baker and Ernesto Galarza rely on a form of story-telling as classic as any other: the coming-of-age tale. This is a universal theme or subject in literature because it usually demands honesty from an author looking back on a troubled stage of life, and because virtually every reader can identify with the feelings of isolation and wanting to belong common to children and adolescents. This difficult period of life, in fact, may be the most common across all cultures; no matter the era or the society, the child entering into adulthood and the world must confront many challenges, and challenges both external and within the growing self. The tales even transcend gender very often, as is the case with Baker and Galarza, who create stories of troubled youth accessible to boys and girls, or men and women.

These authors also share one ambition in the stories, which is the primal need for the young person to find their true identity in the face of multiple, and often overpowering, external pressures, signals, and directions. The circumstances are dramatically different, in that Baker is a mainstream American child and Galarza’s coming-of-age centers on the traumatic shift of leaving his Hispanic background behind in...