Introduction / Kenya Dworkin y Mendez -- Pt. 1. Ybor City. 1. Father. 2. Black Cubans and White Cubans. 3. Black Cubans and Black Americans. 4. Mother. 5. Seventh Avenue. 6. Noche Buena: The Good Night -- Pt. 2. Going Up North. 7. Tally Wop. 8. Fallen to Pieces. 9. Going Up North. 10. Washington, D.C. 11. Dunbar High. 12. The Thurmans. 13. Xavier University -- Pt. 3. At War. 14. Shoving Off. 15. On to India. 16. The Ledo Road. 17. Give Me Some Men. 18. Almost.

"Ybor City, Florida, was once a thriving factory town populated by cigar-makers, mostly emigrants from Cuba and Spain.

Growing up in Ybor City (now Tampa) in the early twentieth century, the young Evelio Grillo experienced the complexities of life in a horse-and-buggy society demarcated by both racial and linguistic lines: Life was different depending on whether one was Spanish- or English- speaking, a white or black Cuban, a Cuban American or a native-born U.S. citizen, well-off or poor. (Even American-born blacks did not always get along with their Hispanic counterparts.)".

"Grillo recaptures in prose this unique world that slowly faded away as he grew to adulthood during the Depression. He relates his increasing assimilation into black American society, and then tells of his adventures as a soldier in an all-black unit during World War II."--BOOK JACKET.

Online resource; title from ePub and PDF title page (Digitalia, viewed October 13, 2014)