Rain of Gold

Having read Victor Villaseñor’s other novels, I was sure Rain of Gold would be a page-turner. It definitely was; not because of the violence, but because of the love story it unfolded. In Macho, another of Victor Villaseñor’s books, the violence drew one in, and in a way created the story. Rain of Gold drew one in by giving many ways of connecting to its 562 pages. It contained bootlegging, the struggles Mexicans face in the U.S, violence, words of wisdom, religion, and of course: love. Rain of Gold is a non-fiction book that follows the lives’ of Victor Villaseñor’s own parents, Juan Salvador Villaseñor and Lupe Gomez.

Villaseñor’s mother, Lupe, grew up in a box canyon named La Lluvia de Oro, or Rain of Gold. It was during the 1910’s when the Mexican revolution forced her and her family to leave their mountainous love. They looked for gold, needing it to cross towards the U.S legally. Gold turned out to be unlucky, but at last they had enough of it to migrate north. There Lupe took up reading and had dreams of working in an office someday. It was also in California where she met Juan Villaseñor, but not before he had gone to jail at the age of 12, learned how to read people in Montana, and become a “professional” gambler. He had returned to California and encountered social injustices. In California he also took up bootlegging, during yet, another jail sentence. He kept bootlegging so he would never have to work for racist Anglos again.
These two children of God could not have been more different. That is why Villaseñor’s book is so compelling. It kept one guessing whether or not these two people would fall in love. It gave one faith to believe that one can achieve anything they put their mind to. Juan Villaseñor’s mom was influential and taught not only her son, but the reader how to be a man, how to live in peace and be truly in love. This book could honestly change one’s prospective of life. Even though the reader might not be of Mexican descent, one could imagine their own mother when Dona Guadalupe told Juan he has been taking life for granted and has been living it with hatred and racism, weakening the heart. I would recommend this book because it was funny and had action from cover to cover, but also because it taught me personally, lessons I will never forget.