Blanco’s cousin Rafi mocks him for his weight, nicknaming him “Lardito.” Blanco remembers how Abuela used to feed him extra food because he was “skinny and frail like a girl,” ” (152), until he became overweight, at which point, fearing he was “a fat sissy” (152), she denied him food. She tells him his “pipi will shrivel up” (153) if he doesn’t lose the weight by the time he’s 13thirteen. She suggests that “hard work” will “make him un hombre” (153) and arranges for him to work for his relative Don Gustavo at El Cocuyito, the Cuban bodega where his parents used to work.

At the bodega, Blanco bags groceries and wipes the conveyor belt. He graduates to stocking shelves under the watchful, critical eye of Don Gustavo, who was wealthy in Cuba until he smuggled his money to America and built his bodega, which “became a renowned and treasured place where Cuban exiles could satisfy their nostalgic hunger for foods that were almost impossible to find elsewhere” (158). To Don Gustavo, the store “was more than his livelihood, it was a substitute for the life he had left behind in Cuba” (158).

Blanco begins eighth grade. He is seated near

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