Gary Soto
Gary Soto was born in Fresno, California on April 12, 1952. He was born into a working-class Mexican-American family. His father, Manuel Soto, died when Gary was five years old in an industrial accident. As Soto recounts in interviews, he spent most of his free time through high school working in farms in the San Joaquin Valley. He picked grapes and oranges, collected aluminum, and hoed cotton and beets. Everyone in his family was a field or factory worker. During Soto's childhood, the...