Characters, Themes, and Quotes

 

The image of the American dream can be unattainable in today’s society

• • In her novel, Henriquez presents a series of immigrant stories told from the perspectives of hispanic citizens post-journey to the United States. Throughout the novel, each character attests to their own personal struggles. They begin to question whether this image of the “American Dream” with the white picket fence, car in the driveway, and dog in the yard, created by the media is a possible reality. The book ends with a sense of questioning as to whether it’s completely possible, simply a rarity, or a complete illusion. In another sense, does each immigrant create their own American dream? 

 

Quotes from the Riveras:

People throw away everything in the United States. Even things that are still perfectly good. – Alma

We wanted more. We wanted what we came for – Alma

We would do it the right way. So we had filled out the papers and waited for nearly a year before they let us come. We had waited even though it would have been so much easier not to wait. And for what? – Alma

 

Quotes from the Toros:

. . .my dad never wanted to take time off from his job. . . He could be replaced in a heartbeat. He didn’t want to risk it. – Mayor

All that time my dad had spent worrying that he was going to get fired for dropping an omelet or for leaving the freezer door open, and now the reason he’d been axed wasn’t even his fault. It was the rotten economy that had landed him in the water and that had capsized the whole ship along with him. – Mayor

 

Quotes from Others:

We were like cockroaches, crawling over each other at all hours of the day. There was no room to move. Just sit tight, keep faith. . . But that’s the thing. It’s just extortion. Top to bottom. – Benny Quinto

No one here wants to admit it, but the United States is part of México’s problem. The United States is feeding the beast, man. I thought maybe if I came here, I could make a difference. – Micho Alvarez

 

 

 

Immigration impacts one’s sense of identity, belonging, and insecurity in their own life 

• • Society often recognizes the difficulty of the immigration application process and physical transport involved in moving a family from one country to another, but we sometimes forget that a person’s immigration story doesn’t stop once they reach their destination. Because immigrants migrate for all different reasons, as seen through the multi-faceted stories of Henriquez’s characters, their experiences in the United States can be uncomfortable, painful, and dynamic. The novel’s characters face the constant question, “where do I belong?” just like real-life immigrants across the nation. 

 

Quotes from the Riveras:

We had been planning our life here for so long. Filling out papers, hoping, praying waiting. We had all of our dreams pinned on this place, but the pin was thin and delicate. . . – Alma

'I feel like you’re the only person who . . . sees . . . me. Maybe everyone else just needs glasses,’ I said. – Mayor

. . .around us American couples and families ate slices of pizza and drank bottles of beer. I had the feeling that they disapproved of us being there. . . I felt the way I often felt in this country- simultaneously conspicuous and invisible, like an oddity whom everyone noticed but chose to ignore. – Alma

 

Quotes from the Toros:

I felt more American than anything, but even that was up for debate according to the kids at school who’d taunted me over the years. . . I wasn’t allowed to claim the thing I felt and I didn’t feel the thing I was supposed to claim. – Mayor

They think we’re Americans now. And maybe we are! Maybe we don’t belong there anymore after all. – Mayor

I wanted to figure it out, the secret to having the easy life that everyone seemed to have, where they fit in and were good at everything they tried. Year after year I waited for it all to fall into place- every September I told myself, this year will be different- but year after year, it was all the same. – Mayor

 

Quotes from Others:

I know some people here think we’re trying to take over, but we just want to be part of it. We want to have our stake. This is our home, too. . . If people want to tell me to go home, I just turn to them and smile politely and say, ‘I’m already there.’ – Fito Angelino

But as soon as there are too many of us, they throw up their hands. No, no, no! We were only just curious. We are not actually interested in you people. – Nelia Zafón

The media, let me tell you, has some fucked-up ideas about us. . . I wish just one of those people, just one, would actually talk to me, talk to my friends, man. . . We’re the unknown Americans. – Micho Alvarez

 

 

 

Culture is intrinsically tied to place

• • Each of the characters in the novel hails from a different hispanic nation. Henriquez shows the vibrant range of culture that exists within each country through the influences that each family carries with them into the United States. Additionally, each of them has a different idea of their allegiance to the US; some of them are dedicated to their new life and feel estranged from their home country, while others desperately wish to return. They all experience varying degrees of homesickness, supporting the idea that culture is a huge part of one’s identity, and that culture is supported by one’s relationship to their home. 

 

Quotes from the Riveras:

Usually in Pátzcuaro someone. . . stopped by in the morning. . . And even on the days when no one came over, through the open windows of our house I could hear the noise of our neighbors. . . Here, it was as if I was sealed into a noiseless box. – Alma

I wished we were back in Pátzcuaro. . . I wished we were anything but here- geographically, emotionally. I wished our life was different, that it was what it used to be. – Alma

 

Quotes from the Toros:

Both Celia and I miss certain things about Panamá, It was our home for so many years. It’s hard to let go of that, even when you have a good reason for leaving. – Rafa

Holidays were always bad–my mom in particular got homesick sometimes like it was a genuine illness–but that Christmas was the worst. – Mayor

 

 

 

The quest for strength depends on self-sufficiency and independence

• • In vulnerable situations, people seek to control their environments free of dependency on others. There may be no more vulnerable situation than that of an immigrant’s story. Alma Rivera struggles with the concept of self-sufficiency, especially in regards to taking care of her daughter in this new environment, but all of the characters face a daunting language and culture barrier that leaves them feeling helpless. Each of them experiences growth throughout the novel in their ability to operate and thrive in their new environment.

 

Quotes from the Riveras:

'We have to do this,’ I said. ‘All I need is for you to say yes, and I promise I’ll take care of everything after that. You won’t have to worry about anything.’ – Alma

I was furious at myself for letting him get to her, for creating an opening just big enough for him to slip through and find her. So finally, just after the new year, I did what I should have done in the beginning–I went to the police. – Alma

How carefully I had set up our lives here. How naïve I had been to think I could control any of it. – Alma

 

Quotes from the Toros:

My mom had decided that she should get a job, just in case my dad really did lose his job, an idea that my dad found unacceptable. ‘I am the provider,’ he said over and over. ‘That’s all there is to it.’ – Mayor

“ was her one chance. I wanted to give her the thing that it seemed like everyone else wanted to keep from her: freedom. – Mayor

 

Quotes from Others:

I did not think of it so much as a choice as an obligation. It is my obligation to provide a good life for them. – Gustavo Milhojas

No. I had planted a stake and now I had something to prove, to my mami and to myself, to everyone from my neighborhood. I had to prove that I could make it. – Nelia Zafón

I gotta fight for what I believe in.  – Micho Alvarez

 

 

 

Other possible motifs

• • Human illegality
  • Discrimination and racism
  • Language barrier and linguistic dominance
  • Machismo
  • Ethnic community bonding and estrangement

Other questions to consider

• • What defines a citizen? 
  • Can human beings be legal or illegal? 
  • Is opportunity worth displacement? 
  • In what ways is culture expressed? 
  • Which immigrant perspectives does society ignore? 
  • Is machismo unique to hispanic culture? 

 

Alma Rivera:

 

I was a worrier by nature and I couldn’t escape the feeling that anything could happen to her at any time. . .I understood how easily and how quickly things could be snatched away.

 

Back then, all we wanted was the simplest things: to eat good food, to sleep at night, to smile, to laugh, to be well. We felt it was our right, as much as it was anyone’s, to have those things. Of course, when I think about it now, I see that I was naive. I was blinded by the sell of hope and the promise of possibility. I assumed that everything that would go wrong in our lives already had.

 

English was such a dense, tight language. So many hard letters, like miniature walls. Not open with vowels the way Spanish was. Our throats open, our mouths open, our hearts open. In English, the sounds were closed. They thudded to the floor. And yet, there was something magnificent about it.

 

Sleep was like wealth, elusive and for other people.

 

‘Go home,’ he said. I knew those words, and I knew by the way he said them that he didn’t mean I should go back to the apartment. Then he lifted one hand and pointed at my face. He took a step forward and touched his fingertip to my cheek, to the bone that curved just under my left eye. He twisted his hand forty-five degrees and cocked it like a gun, three fingers drawn back, his thumb up in the air, and let a burst of air explode from his lips, his warm breath like a ball of fire against my face. ‘¿Comprende?’ he said.

 

But we would be different, we said. We would do it the right way. So we had filled out the papers and waited for nearly a year before they let us come. We had waited even though it would have been so much easier not to wait. And for what?

 

. . .When I glanced at the people around us, no one was even looking in our direction, and I felt the way I often felt in this country – simultaneously conspicuous and invisible, like an oddity whom everyone noticed but chose to ignore.

 

‘We haven’t done anything wrong, Arturo. . .We’re not like the rest of them, the ones they talk about.’ He unclasped his hands and looked at me, his expression sad and weary. ‘We are now,’ he said.

 

 

 

Arturo Rivera:

 

Maybe it's the instinct of every immigrant, born of necessity or of longing: Someplace else will be better than here. And the condition: if only I can get to that place.

 

‘You have to think like a gringa now. You have to believe that you’re entitled to happiness.’

 

I was born in Patzcuaro, Michoacan, Mexico. . .Other people from our town had gone north. Most of them left because they wanted a better life. . .But it wasn’t like that for us. We had a good life, a beautiful life.

 

It took us a long time to be able to come. We applied and waited to be approved. We traveled for days. We left a lot of things behind  – not only physical objects, but our friends and of course our families, pieces of ourselves – all for the chance to see that light in Maribel’s eyes. It’s been difficult, yes, but I would do it all again. People do what they have to in this life. We try to get from one end of it to the other with dignity and with honor. We do the best we can.

 

I’m overcome when I think about this place and about what it’s given us. . .One day when we go back to Mexico and people ask me what it was like here, I will tell them those things. I will tell them all the ways I loved this country.

 

 

 

 

Alma and Arturo Rivera:

 

Arturo: 'The only reason they sponsored our visas was because the government was pressuring them to hire workers with papers. But now everyone's saying it was all talk.'

 

Alma: 'But why does that mean they have to fire you? What are they going to do? Get rid of everyone they already have and hire people without papers now?'

 

Arturo: 'Probably. It saves them money that way.'

 

 

 

Maribel Rivera:

 

Maribel shook her head. 'Finding is for things that are lost. You don’t need to find me, Mayor.'

 

 

 

Mayor Toro:

 

I felt more American than anything, but even that was up for debate according to the kids at school who’d taunted me over the years. . .telling me to go back through the canal. The truth was that I didn’t know which I was. I wasn’t allowed to claim the thing I felt and I didn’t feel the thing I was supposed to claim.

 

I heard my parents tell the story about leaving Panama. . .I pointed out how backwards it was to have fled to the nation that had driven them out of theirs, but they never copped to the irony of it. . .They were torn between wanting to look back and wanting to exist absolutely in the new life they’d created.

 

. . .Before they knew it, we had a life [in America]. They had left their lives once before. They didn’t want to do it again. So they applied for U.S. citizenship, sitting up at night reading the Constitution, a dictionary by their side, and studying for the exam.

 

I’d spent my whole life feeling like that. Like everybody else was onto something that I couldn’t seem to find, that I didn’t even know existed. I wanted to figure it out, the secret to having the easy life that everyone else seemed to have, where they fit in and were good at everything they tried.

 

‘You shouldn’t want to be like everybody else. Then you wouldn’t be like you.’

 

‘You never liked her!. . .You don’t even know anything about her. I mean, did anyone even ask her what she wants?’

 

This was the thing about Maribel: No matter how many times I proved it, she didn’t think I was an idiot. She just took me. 

 

Within the universe, I felt like a speck, but within myself I felt gigantic, the salt air filling my lungs, the roaring of the waves rushing in my ears.

 

All these different veins, but who knew which one led to the heart? And then again, maybe it had nothing to do with any of us. . .Or maybe it really was completely random, just something that happened.

 

 

 

 

Mayor Toro and Garrett Miller:

 

Garrett: ‘Where are you going?’

 

Mayor: 'Home.'

 

Garrett: 'Back to Mexico?'

 

Mayor: 'I'm not from Mexico.''

 

Garrett: 'My dad says all you people are from Mexico.'

 

 

 

Rafael Toro:

 

We’re Americans now. We’re citizens, and if someone asks me where my home is, I say los Estados Unidos. I say it proudly. 

 

Both Celia and I miss certain things about Panama. It was our home for so many years. It’s hard to let go of that, even when you have a good reason for leaving. . .We tried to give it time, but three years later we made the decision to leave. We never felt safe there again. We felt as if our home had been stolen from us. And part of me felt embarrassed, I think, that my country hadn’t been strong enough to resist what had happened to it. Maybe the way to say it is that I felt betrayed.

 

Sometimes I think I would rather just remember it in my head, all those streets and places I loved. The way it smelled of car exhaust and sweet fruit. The thickness of the heat. The sound of dogs barking in alleyways. That’s the Panama I want to hold onto. Because a place can do many things against you, and if it’s your home or if it was your home at one time, you still love it. That’s how it works.

 

 

 

Celia Toro:

 

‘When we left Panama, it was falling apart. Rafa and I thought it would be better for the boys to grow up here. Even though Panama was where we had spent out whole lives. It’s amazing, isn’t it, what parents will do for their children?’

 

 

 

Rafael and Celia Toro:

 

Rafael: ‘Just trying to blend in. That's the way of the world.'

 

Celia: ‘Well, that's the way of America, at least.'

 

 

 

Benny Quinto:

 

. . .Leaving the poverty of Nicaragua to go to the richest country in the world didn’t take much convincing.

 

 

 

 

Gustavo Milhojas:

 

I was born in Chinique, El Quiché, Guatemala. . .The military in Guatemala at that time became too powerful, and the people revolted. The army began kidnapping citizens who they suspected were against them. They were burying people alive. They were raping women thirty times a day. They were laying babies on the ground and crushing their skulls with their boots. How could a baby be against them? Perhaps it was a way to torture the parents. I couldn’t take it anymore. When I was twenty, I decided to leave.

 

I came to the United States to earn more money for my children. . . I did not think of it so much as a choice as an obligation. It is my obligation to provide a good life for them.

 

 

 

Quisqueya Solis:

 

When I was twelve, my mother fell in love with a man from California. He asked her to marry him, so we moved to his home in Long Beach. . .I was less important than the things she had now – a nice house and diamond jewelry, an expensive car and a big refrigerator. It was the life she had always dreamed of – we were even citizens now- and in the United States no less.

 

I don’t need anyone’s pity. My life has been what it has been. It’s not a wonderful story, but it’s mine.

 

 

 

Adolfo “Fito” Angelino:

 

I came here in 1972 because I wanted to be a boxer like the great Juan Carlos Gimenez, who was from Paraguay. Like me. There was a trainer in Washington, D.C., who was good, who was very good. . .

 

Who comes to the United States and ends up in Delaware? I for one never thought I’d be here. But I’ve been surprised. It’s popular with the Latinos. And all because of the mushroom farms over in Pennsylvania. . .It’s cheaper than Pennsylvania. And no sales tax.

 

I know some people here think we’re trying to take over, but we just want to be a part of it. We want to have our stake. This is our home, too.

 

I try to make this building like an island for all of us washed-ashore refugees. A safe harbor. I don’t let anyone mess with me. If people want to tell me to go home, I just turn to them and smile politely and say, ‘I’m already there.’

 

 

 

Nelia Zafon:

 

. . .I wanted to live in New York city and dance on Broadway. . .On my walk home sometimes, and as I stepped back down into that cellar apartment, my eyes heavy from exhaustion, I would think, is this what it is? This country? My life? Is this all? But even when I thought that, I was always aware of some other part of me saying, there is more. And you will find it.

 

The world already had its Rita Moreno, I guess, and there was only room for one Boricua at a time. That’s how it works. Americans can handle one person at from anywhere. They had Desi Arnaz from Cuba. And Tin Tan from Mexico. And Rita Moreno from Puerto Rico. But as soon as there are too many of us, they throw up their hands. No, no, no! We were only just curious. We are not actually interested in you people.

 

You never know what life will bring. . .But that’s what makes it so exciting, no? That’s what keeps me going. The possibility.

 

 

 

Micho Alvarez

 

I came from Mexico, but there’s a lot of people here who, when they hear that, they think I crawled out of hell. . .You went to a resort? Congratulations. But you didn’t go to Mexico.

 

I feel like telling them sometimes. . .I’m a citizen here! But I shouldn’t have to tell anyone that. . .When I walk down the street. . .I want them to see a guy who has just as much right to be here as they do, or a guy who works hard, or a guy who loves his family, or a guy who’s just trying to do the right things.

 

Does anyone ever talk about why people are crossing? I can promise you it’s not with some grand ambition to come here and ruin everything for the gingo chingaos. People are desperate, man. . .And then there are a lot of people who come here because they actually want to do something good in this country. . .No one here wants to admit it, but the United States is part of Mexico’s problem. The United States is feeding the beast, man. I thought maybe if I came here, I could make a difference.