Turning to more serious political concerns, the book portrays everyday life as a middle school boy in the borderlands.

His father is also the first to admit that this privilege isn't fair. Though his classmates mock him for his freckles and reddish hair, Guero's father makes it clear to him that both in America and in Mexico, light-skinned people have the advantage, and always have. Because of his experience as a light-skinned kid among darker-skinned Latinx relatives, Guero experiences some privilege, which makes him uncomfortable. Guero is a Spanish word that means “light-skinned man” Guero was given the name because of the cinnamon color of his skin – a trait which he shares with his idol, the boxer Saul “Canelo” Alvarez. The book is also concerned with race, which is clear even from the title. Rather than italicizing the Spanish or Chicano words, Bowles chose to keep all language on the same playing field, prioritizing neither English nor Spanish as Guero’s “first” language. Guero, whose life is based loosely on the experiences of author David Bowles, speaks primarily Spanish with his older relatives, only Spanish with new arrivals from Mexico, mostly English at school, and a combination of Spanish, English, and Chicano dialects with his family and friends. They Call Me Guero uses bilingualism to make clear the code-switching that Chicano kids, and Guero specifically, experience living on the Mexican-American border.

Some of the main, recurring characters in the poems are Guero, his sister, Teresa, his friends “los Bobbys,” who are entering seventh grade with Guero, and Guero and Teresa's mother and father.

Inspired by his English teacher to begin reading and writing poetry, twelve-year-old Guero writes these poems, which, narrative in structure, follow his life in the borderlands, talk about family, friends, folk tales, and the border wall, among other subjects. The poems vary in tone, from humorous to serious, with topics as far-reaching as ghost stories and racial prejudice. The book uses border slang and bits of bilingualism that call back to the Chicano English of that region. Guero writes about growing up in America on the Mexican border and his experiences crossing back and forth to visit the land of his ancestors. The book is written in a variety of poetic forms, structured as a series of connected vignettes about the life of a young Mexican-American boy who is referred to by his friends and family as Guero. They Call Me Guero: A Border Kid's Poems is a short novel in verse written by David Bowles for middle school and young adult readers.

They call me guero read aloud