[2] Like Juan Manuel Rubio in Pocho, Villarreal's father fought with Pancho Villa in the Mexican Revolution.

Growing up in tents and boxcars with his uneducated, monolingual parents, he received elementary and secondary schooling; his community was a Mexican enclave, primarily Norteño, yet containing "people from every state".

According to scholar Francisco A. Lomelí, the novel argues "that people of Mexican descent have a rightful place they can claim their own that is both Mexican and Anglo American, which Chicanos synthesize in varying degrees [and] accentuates, for the first time in a mainstream American literary scene, Hispanic characters as complex and multidimensional who, despite their individual flaws, possess depth and credibility".

In 1976, he stated the next book, half written at that point, was to be The Houyhnhnms with protagonist Richard Rubio becoming Mike de la O post-war; such would have been followed by Call Me Ishmael, about his son at the University of Colorado and involved in Chicanismo.

He also expressed interest in writing about Antonio López de Santa Anna and a travel book similar to James A. Michener's Iberia.