Dad believed people were like money. You could be a thousanddollar person or a hundreddollar person even a ten five or onedollar person. Below that everybody was just nickels and dimes. To my dad we were pennies.
Fourteenyearold Manny Hernandez wants to be more than just a penny. He wants to be a vato firme the kind of guy people respect. But thats not easy when your father is abusive your brother cant hold a job and your mother scrubs the house as if she can wash her troubles away.
In Mannys neighborhood the way to get respect is to be in a gang. But Mannys not sure that joining a gang is the solution. Because after all its his life and he wants to be the one to decide what happens to it.