Rain of Gold

Rain of Gold recounts author Victor Villaseñor’s family history through the early 20th century, when his parents immigrated to America to escape the violence of the Mexican Revolution. The book was inspired by stories from his grandmother and father, which Villaseñor came to view with skepticism as an adult. He devoted 12 years to researching his family’s history, which included conducting hundreds of hours of interviews with his parents, Lupe and Juan Salvador, and embarking on a personal journey to Mexico. The biographical memoir was published in 1991, after which it became a best-seller translated into several languages.

Though Villaseñor has repeatedly asserted the book’s biographical nature, it nevertheless shares similarities with works of historical fiction, most notably in the style of narration and rich description. The text unflinchingly explores difficult themes like war, immigration, sexism, and racism, particularly internalized racism, but love and family form its foundation. Villaseñor’s core argument is that individuals can survive unspeakable violence and suffering when bolstered by a family’s love, loyalty, and support.

The text is divided into five books. Books 1 and 3 focus on Lupe, Villaseñor’s mother, while Book 2 focuses on his father, Juan. The two families’ stories intertwine in Books 4 and 5.

Embroiled in the bloody Mexican Revolution, six-year-old Lupe introduces readers to a world as flooded with love as it is with violence. Surrounded by a group of loving, if teasing, siblings, as well as her intuitive and intelligent mother, Lupe makes the best of life in a small mining town, tucked away in one of Mexico’s beautiful box canyons. Without a father figure to guide them, the family does the best they can, feeding the miners while panning for gold themselves, hoping to move out from under the oppressive colonists one day. Lupe gets her first lick of love when a handsome and humble colonel rides into their valley and asks if he and his wife can stay with her family. Though the colonel quickly falls victim to the surrounding violence, Lupe never forgets his perseverance or bravery.

In the mountains of Los Altos de Jalisco an 11-year-old-boy named Juan Salvador Villaseñor Castro and his family face many of the same struggles as Lupe’s family. They are at the mercy of the Mexican Revolution and its unpredictable yet steady stream of violence, they have no father figure to guide them, yet they are armed with a fiercely protective mother.

With time, both families come to face the ugly realization that the Mexican Revolution will not end anytime soon and that they need to try to escape to the calmer frontier in America. For both Lupe and Juan, this trip is anything but calm. They constantly fight hunger, thirst, painful weather and walking conditions, as well as the loss of several family members along the way. Even though both families persevere through countless obstacles, they cross the border in separate groups, rather than altogether, because of the cost and danger of getting to America during such upheaval.

In the land of the free, Lupe and Juan continue to suffer life’s hardest lessons. They battle virulent racism, sexism, and classism, both in their own unique ways. They are faced again and again with legal and educational systems that are set up more to hurt than to help them, and with friends who turn out to be foes. It’s in America that Juan and Lupe grow into adulthood, and it’s clear that Juan has followed a more rough-and-tumble path than the delicate and determined Lupe. Somehow, in strange twists of fate, their paths keep crossing again and again.

Juan becomes enamored with Lupe, and her kind, intelligent demeanor slowly calms his more truculent nature. By the novel’s end, with the love and support of their loved ones, the two marry and begin a new life together, demonstrating the power and love and family to persevere against any adversity.