Inhabiting la Patria by Harrison Rebecca L.;Hipchen Emily;

Author:Harrison, Rebecca L.;Hipchen, Emily; [Harrison]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 3408797
Publisher: State University of New York Press
Published: 2013-10-24T00:00:00+00:00

Seeing through this politicized manipulation, Tyler's father assures him that the situation on the farm is not wrong in God's eyes; “Sometimes, a country has these laws that have nothing to do with what's right or what's best for most of the people involved” (56). However, on the school bus, one boy taunts Tyler, “Your dad's breaking the law! You should all be thrown out along with them!” (66). Given these conflicting views, it's no wonder Tyler is reluctant to get to know Mari when she joins his sixth-grade class.

The contradictory representation of migrant workers as angels or trespassers echoes Rosaura Sánchez's reading of xenophobic narratives: “This condition of being included through an exclusion, of being outside of membership and always in relation to something from which one is excluded, is in fact the global condition of the migrant, or undocumented workers, who are ‘marginal’ yet central, ‘superfluous’ yet needed, vilified yet undeniably key to the economic operations of the increasingly fluid and highly stratified economies of what used to be termed the ‘first world,’ now globally dispersed” (137).5 Clearly, the debates surrounding immigration politics and policies are complex, yet in these unstable economic times that may have a daunting effect on today's youth, it is important that adolescents begin to understand and reflect on the issues, and Alvarez's fiction opens an enlightening door to informed discussion.

In an effort to bridge the distance between migrant workers as angels or trespassers, Return to Sender portrays the relationship between the Cruz and Paquette families as mutually beneficial. The recurring images of the swallows or golondrinas and the monarch mariposas that travel freely between Mexico and the United States mark the dairy farm as a safe space where the stranger is welcomed. While this lesson in cross-cultural understanding is refreshing, outside the friendly space of the farm, the mood toward immigrants is actually quite hostile. At the town meeting, for example, Mr. Rossetti, a neighbor, puts forward a motion to round up anyone who is not in the country legally (189). Tyler's teacher respectfully disagrees, modeling a peaceful approach toward conflict, and the motion is voted down almost unanimously. For Tyler, this acrimonious debate is a lesson in seeing democracy in action, but Mari, who is personally affected, cries when she hears the community's hard line opinions.

Tyler and Mari's friendship deepens through cross-cultural dialogue as they try to understand the community's hostile views. In fact, when Mr. Cruz must buy back his wife from smugglers in Texas who demand three thousand dollars for her release, Tyler loans him all of his savings to reunite the family. When they rescue Mrs. Cruz, she is in a terrible state: her terrorized gaze and missing teeth reveal her deep distress. But soon after she is rescued, an immigration raid tears the Paquette and Cruz families apart. As part of a national sweep called Operation Return to Sender, which targets undocumented immigrants with a criminal record, suddenly ICE agents surround the trailer where the Cruzes live. In

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