Genre
Novel
Setting and Context
The economically unempowered section of Newark, Delaware where the protagonists live in a ridiculously cramped apartment.
Narrator and Point of View
Multiple characters narrate the novel from their own unique and distinctive first-person perspectives.
Tone and Mood
Due to the structural framework of multiple narrators, there is a constant tonal shift in the book that is dependent upon the way that each person is telling it. The overall mood, however, ultimately coalesces into one of hope for a change in the circumstances of American society based on nothing more than that making a story known is the first step toward change.
Protagonist and Antagonist
Protagonists: The Rivera family. Antagonist: Garrett Miller.
Major Conflict
When Maribel Rivera is sexually assaulted by a school bully, the event causes a chain reaction which ultimately leads to tragedy.
Climax
The book’s climax takes place when Maribel’s father, Arturo, confronts the boy who assaulted his daughter and the boy’s father in their home and shots are fired.
Foreshadowing
Early in the novel with Garrett, after what is initially a confrontation with Mayor turns into a menacing scene with Maribel as well that ends with a sinister threat directed toward her: “I’m not done with you.”
Understatement
N/A
Allusions
Arturo asserts that Americans always target one group specifically to pick on, suggesting it used to be the “Orientals” but has now switched to Latinos “and the Arabs. At least them I can understand. They did September eleventh” is an allusion to the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001.
Imagery
The closest thing to their home in Panama that the Rivera family gets is proximity to the beach. But Delaware’s beaches aren’t exactly the same thing as Panama’s and this observation makes for a nice bit of imagery that expands in meaning to encompass the entirety of their move to America: “Even with the falling snow, the air had the sting of salt water, and we crunched broken sea-shells under our shoes. But one beach isn’t every beach. And one home isn’t every home.”
Paradox
N/A
Parallelism
N/A
Metonymy and Synecdoche
“American” is used almost exclusively as a metonym. It is shorthand intended to cover the comprehensive meaning of everything that living in America might mean.
Personification
The Volkswagen Rabbit that is an essential prop to the plot is always referred to as “she” as an example of the ways in which personification becomes part of the everyday discourse without it even drawing one’s attention as such.
