111 pages • 3 hours read
Matt de la PeñaMexican WhiteBoy
Fiction | Novel | YA | Published in 2008A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more. For select classroom titles, we also provide Teaching Guides with discussion and quiz questions to prompt student engagement.
Chapters 18-20Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 18 Summary: “Danny’s Return to the Mound”
Having cleared the air with Danny, Uno sets up another hustle. This time it’s in a “ghetto-looking field somewhere in Logan Heights” (148). Uno knows Cory from juvenile hall, and Cory has “a boy” too, one who “can hit like a mother, but he’s a little shaky when it comes to character” (149). When Cory and his guys see Danny, who is wearing his Vans on the mound, they are empowered. Uno gets behind the plate for warm-ups and surprises Danny with his new catcher’s mitt. Danny is determined to win back the money they lost in the last hustle, but he feels “uncertainty climbing into his throat again” (150). His first few pitches come out wild and force Marzel, Cory’s boy, to hit the ground. Marzel threatens Danny with violence. Uno walks to the mound and reminds Danny about the power of the train and how it’s in him now. “It ain’t about you […] It’s bigger than your dumb ass. It’s about your right arm, man. Your talent” (151). Uno’s encouragement has re-centered Danny, who is now able to empty his mind and let his talent flow through him. His next pitch is a perfect fastball, and, within a matter of seconds, Danny strikes out Marzel. As Uno is collecting the money, the girls who had accompanied Cory and Marzel start insulting Danny. They call him a “halfie” and make fun of his clothing and the fact he doesn’t speak Spanish. As one of the girls, Gia, taunts Danny, Marzel sees this as another affront by Danny. Danny steps back, but Marzel keeps after him yelling, “you ain’t disrepectin’ me like that, dawg. You don’t know where I come from” (153). As he’s about to punch Danny, an enraged Uno comes from behind and hits Marzel, knocking him to the ground. Cory yells at Uno and Danny to run. Once on the bus, Uno tells Danny that the punch he’d thrown at Marzel was not him, it was the train, the “[s]ame thing as when you pitch” (154). Danny composes another of his self-aggrandizing letters to his father that he’ll never send.
Chapter 19 Summary: “Senior Reads Danny’s Mind”
Danny has learned to clear his mind and let “his talent do the work” (156). He’s also started to research flights to Ensenada. After the hustle, Danny joins Uno for barbeque with Senior. At the restaurant, Senior shares the story of how he “caught some Mexican kid breakin’ in [his] place” (157). Senior uses the story as an example of “how man is capable of change” (157). He says five years prior he would have beaten the kid to within an inch of his life, but that now he is different. He has learned to “slow down, make decisions on well-thought-out justifications” (159).
Senior describes how he tackled the kid, brought him into the house and told him how he’d “served time, lost [his] marriage, lost [his] son. Lost [his] damn sense of who [he] was” (159). Senior “told that kid [he]didn’t want nothin’ more, Uno, than to make it right with [his] firstborn. [His] boy” (160). He goes on telling Uno and Danny how he encouraged the boy that he, too, could learn the honorable path. The boy ends up confessing to Senior that he’d impregnated a girl he hardly knew and that she was “dead set on havin’ the baby” (160). With no money or a job, he’d started stealing. At first, he was motivated by a need for money, but then by a desire to be caught and locked up so he wouldn’t have to face this new responsibility. Senior tells the boys how everything people do, good or bad, is driven not by chance, but by their personal psychology, “They unconscious” (160).
Senior finishes the story by telling Uno and Danny how he and his wife forgave the boy and gave him all the cash they had on hand. The boy teared up, they shook hands, hugged and he ran off. Uno is in disbelief that his father would give someone who had been trying to steal from him his money. Senior says:
Money ain’t nothin’ but a rabbit in a hat, Uno. It’s an illusion. A trick up Uncle Sam’s sleeve. Advertisers make it out to be this big thing in America so we’ll buy their fancy cars and their big-ass sailboats and their high-end radio equipment, but it’s just paper. No different than the napkin you holdin’in your hand, Uno. You see what I’m sayin’? (161).
Senior tells Uno that in the boy, he saw “a little piece of God […] hidden[…]buried under a lifetime of hurt. But it was there” (161). He tells the boys they all have little pieces of God inside of them, and then, to Danny, Senior says he can see in his eyes that something is bothering him, something deep and confusing. Danny doesn’t respond but wonders how Senior can know how he never stops thinking about his dad or wondering where he is, why he doesn’t call or if he’s ever coming back.
Chapter 20 Summary: “Uno’s Own Vision of a Future”
Danny and Uno face Carmelo again. Uno reminds Danny about the art of double or nothing: “The art of hustlin’ is preservin’ a sucker’s hope” (165). Danny still doesn’t completely get it. Carmelo had been the only hustle they’d ever lost, and they don’t intend to lose again.
Danny’s pitches have become so fast, so powerful, that Uno has started to experience pain in his hand. Carmelo and Uno exchange insults, taunts imbued with bravado, and Carmelo tells Uno that Danny is wild and will never make a team: “He’ll always be right here, with you, pitching on the street” (167). This insult cuts deep for Uno because he believes in Danny. Within minutes, Danny strikes Carmelo out; Carmelo’s pride, mixed with surprised confusion, has him demanding double or nothing. His friends hesitantly hand over their money. As part two of the hustle commences, Uno notes the empty stands and the fact they’re on their own.
Danny strikes out Carmelo a second time. Angry and humiliated, Carmelo sends a friend to the ATM, insisting on a third round. Uno is wary of the situation and warns Danny there could be friction after a third strike-out. He instructs Danny to run immediately for the bus after he throws his third strike, and that he’ll handle the rest. Uno notices JJ standing between home plate and the hat holding the money. After two strikes, Uno tells JJ, who is moving closer to the money, to back up. As the third strike is thrown, JJ shoves the money in his pockets and his guys surrounded him. Uno shoves JJ to the ground and reaches for the money, but one of the other guys kicks him in the head. Uno turns to see Danny down on the ground; Carmelo is kicking him in the ribs. Carmelo throws punches, but Danny is so fast Carmelo hits his own guy. Just then, Uno jumps in and starts hitting the guys who are on Danny. It’s no use, though, as they are outnumbered. Danny and Uno have each taken several punches when the Mexican scout appears. No stranger to fighting, he takes immediate control of Carmelo’s guys. Uno runs to JJ, who is lying on the ground, and grabs the money from his pockets: “The Mexican scout pins two kids against each other with one hand, barks at Uno and Danny, ‘Leave now! Go!’” (173).
Once safely on the bus, Uno blasts Danny for not listening to him. He attracts the attention of nearby passengers as he reminds Danny how he was supposed to run. Uno tells Danny he cannot let Danny get hurt: “You gotta understand somethin’, D. You goin’ places. You gonna be somebody” (174). Danny replies, “So are you, Uno” (174) and they split the money. Uno now has nearly enough to move to Oxnard, and in that moment, Uno becomes grateful.
Chapters 18-20 Analysis
The hustle with Cory and Marzel marks a turning point for Danny as a pitcher. The experience with the train proves transformative, not because the train actually gives him power, but because there is now someone in his life who genuinely cares about Danny. While Uno doesn’t completely understand Danny’s struggle, he does empathize with him. He also recognizes the level of talent Danny possesses and respects it. Uno is also invested in Danny and feels he is in the company of someone with a real future. The same way Danny feels belonging from Uno, Uno feels elevated by his relationship with Danny, and he wants to do right by him. Uno is an alpha and is tough, but he exhibits selflessness to a select few whom he holds close: his brother Manny and now Danny.
Danny gets his first introduction to Senior, who goes into a lengthy discourse on the illusion of money. Senior has strong beliefs about money and race, and how the government and the white media oppress people of color by keeping products everyone wants out of reach. Senior sees the perpetual inability of many to afford the products that advertisers sell as damaging to the self-worth of the poor and to people of color. Senior points out that everyone Uno knows is poor and that they are motivated by money and a desire for things that, in Senior’s view, will not bring meaning or happiness. Senior’s personal evolution has brought him to the place where money is no longer what drives him and that is why he was able to give his money to the boy he found breaking into his house. This dramatic change from the drug abusing, violent father Uno had known as a child to the philosopher buying the boys lunch is still mysterious to Uno; however, he listens, and so does Danny. The most poignant moment in the chapter is Danny hearing Senior tell Uno that his sole purpose in salvaging his own life had been “to make it right with [his] firstborn. [His] boy” (160).Senior says everything to Uno that Danny wants to hear from his own father. Senior acknowledges to Danny how much he knows he is hurting and Danny wonders how he knows.
During the boys’ rematch against Carmelo, Carmelo tells Uno that Danny is wild and will never make a team: “He’ll always be right here, with you, pitching on the street” (167). This insult cuts especially deep for Uno because he knows Danny is something special. Uno has coached, partnered with and believed in Danny, and he takes pride in knowing him. Uno feels pride and validation knowing he is a part of something great, something he has likely never felt before. When Danny strikes Carmelo out three times, he confirms for Uno what he already knows.
Just prior to this hustle, Uno doubted he could ever really change, but Danny’s success has given Uno hope, and his mindset switches to one of gratitude. He feels “this is probably one of the best days of his life” (175) and he lists all he has in that moment: his friendship with Danny, his deposit, and the possibility that things actually could be different—that he could be different—in Oxnard. This moment marks the climax of Uno’s story arc. He is changed: “For the first time in his life […] he understands what his dad’s been trying to tell him all this time. About how people can change. He gets it now. He understands” (176).
Related Titles
By Matt de la Peña
