It is 1977 in Watsonville, California. Pedro (Peter) Martín introduces himself and his family, noting both their Mexican names and the Americanized names they sometimes use. His parents are Mercedes and Pedro Sr., and his brothers and sisters are Salvador/Chava/Sal, Liduina/Lila, León/Leon, Noé/Noe, Ruth, Hugo, Alejandro/Alex, and Adán/Adam. Pedro is the seventh of the family’s nine children. Pedro’s siblings see him as a dreamer, obsessed with drawing comics and collecting action figures. The siblings often bicker with and tease one another, and Pedro’s older brother Noé is often critical of Pedro’s weight. Pedro distracts himself with television, especially the show Happy Days.

Although the house is already crowded, Pedro’s parents announce that they will be traveling to Jalisco, Mexico so they can bring Pedro’s abuelito (grandfather) back to the United States with them. Because the family has lived in the US since before Pedro’s birth, he has only seen his grandfather a few times. Abuelito seems very old and forbidding to Pedro, who notes that his grandfather lived through the Mexican Revolution “like, a hundred years ago” (11). Pedro looks at the pictures of family members on the refrigerator, explaining that the photos of the living are on the refrigerator door and the photos of the dead are on the freezer door.