Book Review

History of the Chicano Movement Informs Manuel Ramos’s New Novel

By Jenny Shank, 5-31-10

My review of Manuel Ramos’ King of the Chicanos ran Sunday in the Boulder Daily Camera.  Check the Daily Camera website for the complete review.

King of the Chicanos
by Manuel Ramos
Wings Press, 180 pages, $16.95

Manuel Ramos is a Denver-based lawyer and award-winning crime fiction author best known for his series of Luis Móntez mysteries.  King of the Chicanos is a change of pace for Ramos, the story of Ramón Hidalgo, a boy who grows up among migrant farm laborers in the 1930’s and ‘40s and becomes a leader, known as “El Rey,” in the nascent Chicano rights movement, which built its largest following in Colorado and elsewhere during the late ‘60s and 1970’s. 

The Chicano rights movement is not as familiar to most students of history as is the general civil rights movement, and for this reason “King of the Chicanos” is a welcome portrait of a fictional figure that offers insights into actual events.  It’s clear from the details Ramos employs that he is an expert in this history.

Ramos sets early chapters of the book in real places, such as Palisade, Colo. and Stockton, Calif., but when Hidalgo begins active involvement with politics and community organizing, the narrative moves to the fictional Escobar, a city in an unnamed southwestern state.  Still, there are clear parallels to historical events, such as one incident in which a group of La Fuerza de la Raza members (the Escobar branch of Chicano activists) is on its way to plant a bomb, and instead the bomb detonates in the car, killing the bombers.  A similar incident occurred in Boulder in May of 1974, when six people active in the Colorado Chicano movement were killed in two car bombings, becoming known as “Los Seis de Boulder.”

The rest of this review appears on the Boulder Daily Camera website.

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