Gary Soto\'s Taking Sides Personal

¶ … Gary Soto's TAKING SIDES

Personal Response: Taking Sides

The novel Taking Sides by Gary Soto tells the story of Lincoln Mendoza, a gifted young Hispanic-American basketball player who moves from his largely nonwhite neighborhood to a wealthy, all-white suburb. Lincoln's struggles to adjust to a new school, new friends, and to deal with insensitive coaches are easy to relate to, for all readers. Lincoln must struggle with issues of identity, loyalty, and adults who do not fully understand the emotional depth of his feelings and personal conflicts.

At the beginning of the novel, Lincoln is questioning who he really is as a person. Every person Lincoln's age experiences some self-doubt, of course. But for Lincoln, this sense of doubt is even more extreme because he no longer has his friends and community around him, and is surrounded by individuals of a different culture than himself. His mother wants 'the best' for him, but Lincoln is not sure that his new school is really 'the best' environment for him to develop into the person he wishes to become. His mother is tired and afraid after the family home is burgled -- so she decides to move away from Lincoln's old school. For Lincoln the move is a "voyage" of ten miles and worlds away to a place where he feels like an alien, except perhaps on the basketball court (Soto 5). Gradually, Lincoln begins to feel more accepted by members of the team, as his skills in basketball make him stand out, although he still feels slightly uncomfortable in the homes of some of his richer friends, eating fancy dinners and playing expensive video games. I could relate to Lincoln's sense of never feeling at home, at his old or his new school, given my own struggles in a school where I never felt a part of any particular group or clique.

Lincoln feels the pressure to 'keep it real' from his old friends from his old neighborhood. Sometimes it can be hard to excel at something that your friends are not good in or do not understand. To have to leave your friends behind and to do your best, for yourself, can feel like a betrayal to your friends. Lincoln wants to show his excellence in 'the big game' for his own sense of pride and self-worth, not anyone else's. But he is aware of the fact that he must beat his old school to show that he is a good player, even though he does not like Coach Yesutis' attitude towards him. Basketball is a 'zero sum game' there is only winners and losers, but Lincoln does not want to choose sides. He cannot go back to where he came from, but he does not want to validate Yesutis. As a student who had to struggle to show his intelligence in school while enduring the mockery of my less academic friends, I relate to the conflict of wanting to be like everyone else, wanting my peers to like me, yet still feeling full of the desire to demonstrate what I can do well to the world. Leaving your friends behind to stand alone and do your best is hard, plus Lincoln still is part of a team. "Who do you think you are? Why do people keep asking me that," wonders Lincoln (Soto 65).