I found Matt de la Pena's book Mexican White Boy to be a very interesting novel. In the first few chapters though, I noticed Pena included many stereotypes. I am rather unsure about the reality of the setting. I personally have never been to a Mexican neighborhood so it may be difficult to compare it to reality.
Right off, the stereotypes are almost listed in order. All Mexicans live together, many are illegal aliens, Mexicans are rather poor, Mexicans do landscaping for white people, Mexicans drink alcohol, smoke marijuana, and swear often along with saying a lot of slang. I question Pena's intention of putting this in, but it could be concluded that he used to transfer the actuality of the slum to a reader. I still personally disagree with the extremities he went to. Everybody except for Danny seems to follow these stereotypes. I feel that Pena could have made it less stereotypical if he would have described the setting more then the people who live there.
Pena also included many unique analogies of which to describe different skin colors. I've heard racist jokes of which were similar to his analogies. Describing skin as a chocolaty color for Mexicans seems to be a bit to extreme. He also uses similar analogies to describe other skin colors. Doing this though does provide excellent imagery to the reader to help them understand the skin color. He could have tried to use it with more subtle usage, that would eliminate the almost rascist tone that Danny says in his thoughts.
Interesting analysis. I like how you picked up that Danny was the only character who didn't follow the cliches. Maybe de la Peña was trying to help the reader understand how alienated Danny felt? Danny is the focus of the story and maybe he only sees the stereotypes in the people around him? Or it's possible that it's also simply a poor writing choice to really drive home that Danny is different? Only time will tell.
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