The story began in 1918, when Gustavo Arellano’s great-grandfather and grandfather arrived in the United States, only to be met with flying potatoes. They ran, and hid, and then went to work in Orange County’s citrus groves, where, eventually, thousands of fellow Mexican villagers joined them. Gustavo was born sixty years later, the son of a tomato canner who dropped out of school in the ninth grade and an illegal immigrant who snuck into this country in the trunk o… More >>
Orange County: A Personal History
This book is horrible the author describes how he hates American traditions and the country he was born in and lives in he also spews anti religious garbage and makes several racist and anti-semetic comments through out. i am especially mad that all Eng 100 students are forced to read this book at my school (Fullerton College) . also the author does not even know how to keep all his facts in order he jujmps from ideas to his opinion all thoughout the book i wanted to give this zero stars
Rating: 1 / 5
I had seen Arrellano interviewed on C-Span’s “Book TV” before buying his book, Orange County. Though he seemed a bit contentious and tad chippy on the shoulder, he was clearly bright and witty.
The disappointment of the book is that the brightness of the person becomes the main issue. He’ll say any damn thing to turn a phrase, and in turning his phrases, he becomes consistently smug and critical–of conservatives, of the wealthy, of the religious. He is a liberal writing for liberals and that generally results in a book that in pretty unreadable. In this case, too, the tedium of the history of his family obscures and delays the unravelling of the history of Orange County, which in itself is occasionally interesting and well wrought.
Hell, we all have colorful enough families to write about, but generally the public is spared these cute histories, as they are normally cranked out on a portable Smith-Corona by a sentimental grandson in his eighties who intends the chapter to be useful to those descendants crazy enough to be doing a family geneaolgy. In Arellano’s case, the details of the comings and goings across the border of his grandfather and Dad, usually in a trench or the trunk of a car–and “everyone having to pee real bad”–and the minute details of street squabbles between persecuting Americanos and fleeing Mexicanos just don’t ring true. This writer would have had no way to access the multiple yarns he passes off as “fact,” and in the final analysis, who gives a hang?
Arrellano just can’t get over how the Mexicans weren’t allowed to win the Citrus Wars of 1936. A powerful combine of farmers, newspaper magnates, and politicians quelled the strike by the workers in the Orange fields. That incident, returned to several times, bespeaks the mind-set of the author and the spirit which pervades this book. After reading half of this mixed tale, I realized the everything I was really interested in, an expansion of my knowlege of Orange County, was to be found in the occasional paragraphs surrounded by a border, in which interesting facts about Orange county towns are highlighted. Thus I spent five days reading the first half of the book, trying to remember who Papa Je, Ezequiel and Mariana were, but happily I finished the second 125 pages in less than twenty minutes. And now I have a lot of information I probably didn’t need: where in Orange County to find gays, MILF’s, hookers, and lavish Gospel tents.
This book is from the hand of a young man who has everything, a proper education (albeit from Chapman), a decent home in a land of milk and honey, a better-than-decent job as an itinerant cuisine columnist, a young man is is going to spend his whole life viewing the world the the prism of the failed Citrus Wars of 1936. “Woe is me” books are a dime a dozen. And here is another.
Rating: 2 / 5
Like Arellano I believe that books which chronicle a history of a region are only interesting to persons native to the area or scholars. On that note: I grew up in Orange County (specifically Anaheim) and I loved this book. I’ll admit I’m a bit of a history nerd but I think any person who has lived in Orange County will like this book. Even if you just like reading Arellano’s quick blurbs on cities, what you can do there and where to eat. It’s not the humor of “Ask a Mexican”. If you expect that you will be disappointed. Definitely more of a mini biography, but still worth the read. If not commited to buying it online you should at least take a quick glance at the book store.
On another level, I think reading Arellano’s family and personal history will give you a deeper understanding of his satiric and sardonic style. I think many people who find his columns offensive just don’t get his sense of humor and I think this book will help. This book showcases Arellano as more than just “The Mexican”.
Rating: 4 / 5
Very funny and very good historical insight. Enjoyed this very much. Want to know about prejudice in Orange County read this. It is fun and thought provoking
Rating: 5 / 5
Riding the crest of his wildly successful — and controversial — syndicated column “¡Ask a Mexican!” (and a best-selling book of the same name), Gustavo Arellano brings us a memoir, “Orange County: A Personal History (I’ve Been Taking Notes)” (Scribner, $24 hardcover).
If you were to ask a person on the street what Orange County stands for, you likely would hear such things as Disneyland, John Wayne, idyllic suburbia and expansive shopping opportunities.
If you ask Arellano, you would get a decidedly different answer. In fact, as a lifetime resident of Orange County, he felt that there was a need for a book that told the truth about his hometown. When I chatted with him recently, I asked which O.C. myth he most wanted to dispel with his memoir.
“That Orange County is Eden,” he said. “It’s not. I wouldn’t want to live anywhere else on earth, but I acknowledge the corruption, the Mexican-bashing, the iron grasp developers have on county residents, the class warfare across O.C.”
Not to worry. Despite this rather serious goal, “Orange County” is crammed with Arellano’s mordant wit mixed with a healthy dose of personal and cultural history. The result is an often-funny, sometimes-moving tale that stands in stark contrast with the mythology of Orange County. The O.C. will never be the same.
Interestingly, Arellano relies heavily on his experiences growing up in an immigrant neighborhood that suffered from tough economic circumstances but which maintained family strong ties with Mexico. He touches upon his adolescent awkwardness, his father’s drinking problems and other familial imperfections.
I wondered why Arellano decided to combine a cultural history with a memoir.
“The two books I always wanted to write were a history of Orange County and another telling the mass exodus of the ranchos of my mami y papi to Anaheim and points beyond,” he explained.
“My agent was excited about the Orange County angle, but he was more enthralled by the tales of my family’s four generations in Anaheim.”
Arellano agreed to the double focus, but it took some work: “Guided by my editor Brant Rumble, I was able to accomplish the tricky feat of the hybrid that both told a serious history of a much-stereotyped region but also wove in the modern story of Mexican migration to los Estados Unidos.”
Arellano sprinkles his book with little boxes that offer pithy descriptions of O.C. communities such as Buena Park (”One of our many cities with a stupid Spanglish name”), Newport Beach (”No ghettos here, but a lot of recovering-addict homes”), and Costa Mesa (”The city that wished it were like neighboring Newport Beach”).
And because Arellano has been a food critic for the OC Weekly for the past four years, he includes food recommendations for each community, such as Abel’s Bakery in Lake Forest — which, he informs us, was once a Jewish bakery but is now run by a Mexican Mormon. Whether he’s writing about Mexican, Greek, Korean, Cuban or Persian cuisine (to name a few), your mouth will water as Arellano describes local delicacies.
Arellano said he’s finalizing details to publish another book for Scribner. The tentative title: “Taco USA: How Mexican Food Conquered America (And Soon, the World).”
He asked me: “Did you know that tacos are all the rage in Sweden, except their tacos make Taco Bell look like the masterwork of a lonchera?”"
I didn’t know that. But I always learn something new from Gustavo Arellano.
[This review first appeared in the El Paso Times.]
Rating: 5 / 5