Chesa Boudin is a world traveler. He is a Chicago kid. He is the child of politically incarcerated parents. He is an American scholar. He is a lecturer and a journalist.
Boudin has experienced Latin America from the inside, a dual perspective of playing the “gringo” wild card when necessary while also attempting to fit in as best as possible and gain acceptance and access.
“With one hand cuffed to a barely visible abyss of poverty and incarceration, and the other grasped in the confident handshakes of those accustomed to privilege and comfort, I learned to move freely between different universes,” says Boudin in his book
At a mere twenty-eight years young, the curious traveler has already experienced the sadness and sensations of local and foreign struggles.
Both of Boudin’s parents were imprisoned when he was only eleven months old, after their involvement in a politically motivated armed robbery gone wrong. Boudin was then taken in and raised by close family friends.
He describes his upbringing as “my four parents’ group efforts made feasible the transitions between the mostly white, middle-class, private school day-to-day and the mostly poor, black, and Latino prison system that was a constant thread in my life. I lived in parallel worlds.”
Boudin always chooses to travel by chicken bus, regardless how many hours the journey will take. He chooses to live alongside the people, to better understand the cultural divide and the extreme poverty that so much of the world endures.
He shares his observations in his book, Gringo.
In regards to politics and culture, his new autobiographical travelogue, takes the reader along on Boudin’s Latin American adventures, unconventional in every way and furtively introspective.
His writes his coming-of-age memoir with numerous footnotes echoing the standpoint of a young man, aching to acquire a better grasp of the world.
Perusing through numerous countries, over nearly a decade, Boudin exposes his most personal relationships with locals, and comments on every aspect of social and political culture that he comes across.
Boudin is first and foremost a journalist, and with this viewpoint he is able to clearly convey detailed, sometimes dense information in a fun, glued-to-your-book kind of way.
The story begins when an eighteen-year-old Boudin travels to Guatemala for a Spanish immersion experience after finishing his high school credits early.
He then goes on to explore the Chilean landscape with a Rotary International scholarship, where he watches police and protestors clash on September 11, 2001.
In Argentina, he witnesses an economic crisis in the capital city of Buenos Aires.
While visiting Brazil, he travels down the Amazon to rural countrysides and witnesses the true extent of rural poverty and the economic tug of war between natives and corporate interests.
Later in Venezuela, he works inside Chavez’s palace translating documents from Spanish to English.
He joins his adopted mother and a Franciscan nun on a civil rights mission in Colombia.
He learns of Ecuadoran oil pipeline proposals, and environmental destruction outside Quito. He observes a political power struggle that inevitably leads to bloodshed.
In Bolivia, he explores silver mines, and comes face to face with the socio-political ramifications of being a miner. He learns of death and “dying” wages.
Throughout each adventure Boudin makes many dear friends, and uses colorful descriptions and conversational settings to place the reader in every experience. The book is both insightful and objective. He brings forth fascinating and factual information to young readers in a breezy, engaging, and consistent manner.
