Famous All Over Town

¶ … Santiago's book? What happens to the characters in Chato's family? What will Chato's future be?

Daniel Santiago's novel Famous All Over Town tells the story of an impoverished Chicano family, led ineffectually by a long-suffering mother and a father who is more concerned with his own masculine pride than the future of his family. The book ends with Shamrock Street being bulldozed over into rubble. This razing is not an unexpected event, as the residents are warned beforehand. The lack of concern with which Chato's father views this threat until it actually occurs becomes symbolic of the lack of concern the man has treated his wife and children, just as the demolition of Shamrock Street is symbolic of the lack of regard society holds for its largely Hispanic residents.

Right before the bulldozers come, Chato chronicles how the other residents move away, as Kiko's family moves to Chicago, another of Chato's former friends joins the military, and other families move back to Mexico. "But we stayed ... why move out when we can live rent free?" snorts the father. (275-276) The book ends on a strangely incomplete, unresolved note, as the street, apartment, family, friends, and street gang in which Chato found a kind of dysfunctional home are gone. The bulldozers come, take away everything, and now Chato has nothing left.

This attitude on the part of Chato's father towards the end of his home and the end of life as the family knew it on Shamrock Street, shows a lack of forward thinking on the father's part, that he has passed down to his son Chato. For example, at the beginning of the book, to show his masculinity, Chato's father encourages his wife to have another child the family cannot afford, as it shamed him to have "a two-kid family," where on Shamrock Street, "six was usual, or five at least." (20) Even at the end of the day, when his leadership of the family has proved ineffectual, Chato's father tells his son that his word remains "numero uno" rule in the family and that "respect" of fatherly authority must be honored. (265) The book ends with the suggestion that Chato is doomed, because of his sociological and family circumstances, to repeat the mistakes of his father. The entire family is unable to engage in future-oriented thinking and to begin anew in the rubble of their old residence.

True, some families and boys move on beyond the confines of the street and try to make something of their lives. But although sociological problems affect the lives of all of the boys in the gang, the hopelessness and impulsivity of gang and barrio life seems to affect Chato's family more than other families. One of the reasons Chato's family is the last to leave is because of the stubbornness of his father, and the father's inability to present a good role model for his son. Whenever Chato is presented with an opportunity to escape his circumstances, he lacks the follow- through to make it come about. Chato's father would rather retain his immediate illusion of control and authority over his family and escape.