Meet Rico Fuentes, a second generation Cuban American teenager with light skin, hazel eyes, and blond hair. In his New York City neighborhood, that makes him an easy target. If he looks white, he must have money. So he’s been beaten up more times than he can count, something he shares in common with Junior from Sherman Alexie’s Part-Time Indian. Like Junior, Rico is in love with comic books. While Junior is the only Indian at his all-white school (except the school mascot), Rico is the only white kid in his neighborhood and he’s not even really white. Man, talk about having an identity crisis. Rico has had enough of being the palest Cubano on planet earth and being called dark dude (what a male of white skin is derisively called by persons of color).
So he decides to do what his hero Huck Finn did and light out for the territory. For Rico, that’s a farm in rural Wisconsin where his friend Gilberto is living. He leaves a note behind for his parents and convinces his best friend Jimmy, who has been trying to beat a heroin addiction, to go with him.
In the land of milk, honey and cheese curds, Rico finds that his struggles with identity, race, his relationship with his parents, and random violence are still ever-present. But he also finds romance, a job and a growing sense of purpose. Though the story takes place in the 1960s, Rico’s journey of self discovery resonates very much with teens today. Dark Dude is gritty, funny, heartbreaking and wholly captivating. It unfolds like the musical rhythms of Cuban jazz, smooth and expansive. I listened to Cuban jazz great Chucho Valdes while hitching a ride with Rico and Jimmy in Oscar Hijuelos’ Dark Dude (Christie, The Loft).
If you like Dark Dude, try Alexie’s The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, Hinton’s The Outsiders, and Twain’s The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.
