Gary Soto's Buried Onion

A brown colored man, with very few people to trust, walking through the city of Fresno, California. Everyone within the city of Fresno, crying or in a feeling of sadness, it is really hard for a 19-year old. In Gary Soto’s book “Buried Onions”, the protagonist, 19-year old Eddie, lives in Fresno, California. Eddie lives by himself. His father, his cousin Jesus, uncles, and best friend are all dead. This is very difficult for Eddie. Throughout the book, “Buried Onions”, the most significant challenges that Eddie faces are poverty, crime, and peer pressure.
Poverty is very common in the city of Fresno, especially for Eddie because of him dropping out of college. Trying to earn a living in such a poor area is troubling for Eddie. “The working life was a scam”(Soto 35), Eddie said. He was treated poorly after agreeing to move an AC unit. As Eddie scans the streets of Fresno, looking for some kind of work to do for pay, he spots a man in need of help moving an AC unit. Eddie helps him, …show more content…
From car-break ins, robberies, and killing. Eddie lived through this kind of life in Fresno. While working with a man named Mr. Stiles, he borrowed his truck to head over to a dump where Eddie found an interesting refrigerator. He packed it up and took it home. After dropping off the refrigerator and washing it up, he walked out to see that the truck was stolen. “Damn! I was only gone a second!”(Soto 30), as Eddie responds to the missing truck. Eddie also had a high school friend, named Jose, who visited him from the military. Jose decided to take Eddie out for breakfast. After eating breakfast, while getting ready to leave, they spotted the stolen truck that belonged to Mr. Stiles. Jose knowing the situation, he confronted the teenagers and was stabbed. Jose was a healthy man who had just came back from the military, this was such a tragic event and Eddie was so sad. Eddie had to deal with so much crime in Fresno, in addition to overwhelming peer