Juan Salvador Villasenor

An Irish priest who loves bootleg booze performs the joyful wedding, which is attended by a Jewish tailor, an Indian sheriff who protects bootleggers, and of course both families, including the groom's God-fearing mother, who often sits in the outhouse in blasphemous conversation with the Virgin Mary, "the Bible open on her lap, a cigarette hanging from her lips and a glass of whiskey in her left hand."

The immigrant experience has always been integral to the American adventure. What makes the Mexican ordeal different is that they arrived by foot rather than by airplane or in steerage. The Villasenor and Gomez families came in the first wave of mass migration from Mexico, in the

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Instead, they fenced in their crops. Los mejicanos never wasted anything.

Both families have a spiritual underpinning where God and nature are worshipped as one. Put "Rain of Gold" on the same shelf with Cary McWilliams's "North From Mexico" and "Bracero," by Eugene Nelson, to better understand how overwhelmingly the Mexican border renews life and fosters love. Much to his horror he discovers it's his own mother, shamelessly begging. "

"Rain of Gold" captures well the odd formality of rural turn-of-the-century Mexican speech patterns, but repetitive cliches and telegraphed scenes diminish it somewhat. His characters are keenly drawn, however, and the smells pungent. Villasenor, author of two previous books, alternates between the two families, focusing on the volatile Juan Salvador and the thoughtful Lupe; eventually the book becomes their love story. Flies, ants and vultures quickly attack, and, crazy with hunger for himself and his family, Juan bites a dead horse's "bloody hairy hide. American investment In Mexico, encouraged by both Governments, proved meddlesome, manipulative and eventually destructive to the workers toiling in American-owned mines. "'Thank you,' she said, `but you didn't have to hit him so hard. He had plenty of street smarts, but often the street got in the way of his smarts. Often I felt like a family member quietly watching from a corner stool. One day, out searching for firewood, Juan Salvador witnesses a dozen "wild men" ambush six horsemen, "hacking them with their machetes, and shooting their horses out from under them" for their clothes, shoes and surviving mounts.

Common topics in this essay:
Juan Salvador, Rain Gold, Porfirio Diaz, Victor Villasenor, Mary Bible, Mexican Revolution, Eugene Nelson, Villasenor Gomez, Ana Calif, rain gold, , juan salvador, victor villasenor, street smarts,

Approximate Word count = 882
Approximate Pages = 4 (250 words per page double spaced)

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