Butterfly Boy: Memories of a Chicano Mariposa

Content Warning: This section of the guide includes discussion of domestic violence, sexual assault, drug and alcohol abuse, and anti-gay bias.

Rigoberto González (b. 1970) is a Chicano writer and editor. In addition to the coming-of-age memoir Butterfly Boy, he is the author of many other memoirs about his life experience as a gay Chicano man, including Autobiography of My Hungers (2013) and Abuela in Shadow, Abuela in Light (2022). He has also authored several poetry collections, including the award-winning Unpeopled Eden (2013). Following the events recounted in Butterfly Boy, González went on to earn a bachelor’s degree in humanities and social science interdisciplinary studies from the University of California, Riverside and graduate degrees from the University of California, Davis; and Arizona State University. He is also the recipient of the prestigious Guggenheim Fellowship.

In Butterfly Boy, González describes the events of his childhood through to his early adulthood. He portrays himself as an awkward, shy child who has difficulty relating to others in his community for several reasons. González says that his hands are “so small and clumsy” in contrast with his family of agricultural workers (29), who have both strength and manual dexterity necessary to perform the work of picking and sorting crops.