Lupita Manana

Lupita Mañana presents itself as a straightforward tale of a dutiful 13-year-old migrant girl, who scrambles to help meet her family’s needs in a time of crisis. Beneath the simple storyline, however, there are multiple layers of meaning. Beatty accurately portrays the myriad obstacles facing lower-class Hispanic families in three settings: the coastal fishing town of Ensenada Mexico, the border city of Tijuana, and California’s Coachella Valley. She also describes the trials the travelers face in the countryside as they move from one setting to another. Though there are similarities among the various locales, each area has its own unique problems. In 1981 Ensenada, the Torres family has a scant social safety net to assist them when Lupita’s father is swept out to sea. In Tijuana, there are a great many scoundrels who make their living by taking advantage of those who wish to cross the border into the US. In California, unauthorized immigrants live in constant fear of capture and deportation by la migra, the federal anti-immigration police. As Lupita and Salvador move from one setting to another, they can never fully relax. They are innocents who must continue to learn new coping skills. Reading their story is living through an education in the harsh realities of migrant workers, realities that have remained unchanged for over a century.

In Chapter 1, the narrative reveals the Torres family to be subsistence workers who survive through a precarious balancing act in which the mother and father must each provide money on a continual basis. Lupita, the main character, is first described as she tries to avoid the staff and visitors of the Ensenada hotel where her mother is a chambermaid. It is quickly evident this is a regular practice for her. Salvador, her brother, also endures a marginalized life. He cannot find a meaningful job and spends his days wondering if his growing relationship with Dorotea, the daughter of his father’s boss, might cost his father his job. Before any awareness of the disaster they are about to face, the Torres family is portrayed as living an existence of scarcity and dread.

From a literary viewpoint, Beattie is attempting something unique and challenging. As will be discussed in the section on literary devices, she has essentially rewritten the children’s classic Pollyanna, the story of a tween girl who dwells in her own small world of perpetual, infectious optimism. Pollyanna’s bright outlook transforms all those around her. Beatty has taken the basic elements of that 1912 novel and turned them into a 1980s examination of how persistent optimism fares in a world of continued blight, suffering, defeat, and danger. Instead of Pollyanna’s premise—a girl enlightening and lifting the torpor of a stodgy, small, Northeastern town—Lupita Mañana is the story of many people mocking Lupita’s courage and hopeful heart as they burden her with their own versions of unhappy reality. Pollyanna becomes the teacher of her community. Lupita is the perpetual student. Even in the final scene of the book, her eight-year-old cousin Irela shines a flashlight onto a picture book beneath their bed covers to teach English words to Lupita. Lupita’s unflagging optimism is her anchor as she passes through these unpredictable, harsh worlds. Indeed, her attitude is less optimism than unanchored hope in the face of few positive possibilities.

Reviewers have been critical of the book for several reasons. Latinx readers in particular complain about the stilted tone of the dialogue, the actions of the characters, or the anticlimactic way the novel ends. It may be the case that readers want more of a “happy ending” than Beatty provides or that readers become so engaged in the story they demand Lupita and Salvador act in different ways, much as readers of Great Expectations hounded Charles Dickens to change his novel’s original anticlimactic ending. It is significant to acknowledge, therefore, that none of the characters’ actions could be considered unrealistic or even unlikely. In the same way, none of the events the characters endure could be considered unusual. Most of what the characters experience in the narrative continues to occur regularly along the US-Mexico border and in unauthorized immigrant communities today.

To understand what Beatty is doing with the dialogue in the book, readers might consider that she is using literal translations of Spanish conversations. If written in the original Spanish, this dialogue would be conducted in typical idioms and flow smoothly. As a direct translation it seems stilted and formal. Direct, literal translation from one language into another often loses the rhythm and casual familiarity of the language being translated.

Another characteristic Beatty reveals in the first few chapters is the profound ignorance of the children and, in particular, of Lupita. Though she loved school, was an apt student, and speaks fondly of her teachers throughout the narrative, she regrets not having more education. Beyond formal learning, she has no familiarity with the many astonishing things she will encounter as she moves from the small coastal community—Ensenada’s population in 1980 was less than 150,000—through massive Tijuana and across the border. She and Salvador must piece together precisely where they are going, how they can travel, what dangers they might face, and who can be trusted. When their mother and uncle send them off toward Indio, California, they have no specific directions to offer the teenagers. The ability of these migrants to learn and adapt to the unknown situations they encounter speaks greatly of their intelligence and courage.

Typically, extremely optimistic individuals are portrayed as daydreamers who wish away negative possibilities. Their heads in the clouds, they are never quite in touch with reality. On the contrary, Lupita’s positive outlook is invariably a response to bad developments and hard realities. Unusual occurrences, such as the visit of her father’s boss to her parent’s home, immediately sets off alarms for Lupita. She remains on edge and hyper-vigilant throughout the narrative. Her nickname, Lupita Mañana, arises from her attitude that, “Yes, things are bad today, but they might be better tomorrow.”

Lupita’s unique and essential place in her family is shown in many ways, perhaps most tellingly in her response to the news of her father’s death. In these early chapters, Lupita thinks often of her father. Her descriptions of him reveal that, despite the delicate balance of their subsistence, Lupita adored her father, and he loved and depended on her in return. Her pivotal role in the family is demonstrated in how her younger siblings rely upon her, such as when she comforts the younger ones by telling them their father is now a star in heaven, shining brightly and watching over them. Considering this family dynamic, Carmela Torres likely chooses to send Lupita with Salvador to provide a conscience and even keel for him on his journey to the US.

These first chapters also reveal the character of Lupita’s brother Salvador. He is a moody, brooding presence who finds his sister’s positive attitude childish. Though he loves his sister, he finds her an annoying burden. He seldom helps her and usually does not want her around. Despite portraying himself as being supremely confident, Salvador recognizes the extreme difficulties the siblings are about to face. Throughout the narrative, Lupita has an up and down relationship with her brother, who is sometimes dependable and nurturing but often aloof and bullying.

Chapters 2 and 3 reveal the depths of the crisis facing the Torres family. Even though the father’s body was not found, there are customary death expenses the family must pay. Many of the grief rituals revolve around the church and the priest, which is at once a source of wisdom and stability and a drain on the family’s scant resources. Salvador is unable to step into the job that cost his father his life because of his surreptitious relationship with Captain Ortega’s daughter. It is a sign of Carmela’s desperation that she insists Salvador ask for the very job that claimed her husband’s life. Though the community pulls together around them, it is clear the Torres family faces financial ruin. The only workable plan—sending Salvador and Lupita to the US to find jobs—requires that Carmela borrow money she cannot repay on her own. Failing to repay the note will cost her family their home.

While Beatty does not spell out Carmela’s fears about the dangers her oldest children will be facing on their journey, readers can surmise the nature of her apprehension through the precautions she takes. She makes Lupita create a secret pouch in her clothing to hide the money borrowed to finance their trip. She also makes Lupita dress like a boy and hide her hair under a ballcap. While there is only one cryptic reference to the specific dangers a girl might face on such a journey—when Lupita is warned to avoid going alone to the shed of the farm workers’ boss (146)—Beatty implies that Carmela intends to conceal Lupita’s gender as a safety measure.

The brutality and hardships the migrants face begin immediately as they start the 75-mile journey from Ensenada to Tijuana. A trip that would take less than two hours in a vehicle ends up requiring two arduous days of walking, during which they face extreme heat, thirst, and danger. Mugged and beaten by two Mexican thugs, they begin to realize no stranger, not even other Mexicans, can be trusted. In Chapter 4, Salvador and Lupita find Tijuana overwhelming and have no idea how to proceed with crossing the border. Whenever Mexicans speak of entering the US their slang expression is simply “over there”; the United States is seldom mentioned by name. The first time they see the border itself, they retreat in awe. As they gradually learn how to cope with the city, they grow circumspect in whom to approach for advice, trusting no one with their intentions or true identities. The degree of difficulty and danger ramp up dramatically in Chapter 5 where the two sneak into the truck of a coyote, fight against bandits, and get arrested by the Border Patrol. The gravity of what they are attempting and of the negative possibilities are brought home for the migrants and readers when Lupita and Salvador witness an older immigrant killed by thieves after crossing the border. Beatty captures the poignancy of the moment as she describes Lupita’s thoughts about the fight she and Salvador had with bandits in their first, failed attempt to cross the border: “She glanced at her brother. Someday, when they returned to Ensenada, she would tell everyone what a brave thing he had done tonight. Then perhaps he would tell them what she, small, skinny Lupita, had done too” (68-69).