Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Before We Were Free, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Coming of Age and Political Consciousness
Adulthood, Childhood, and Fear
Family and Politics
Storytelling and Trauma
Summary
Analysis
Anita is sitting in front of the TV at the Hotel Beverly. Her grandparents, Mamita and Papito, are renting an apartment here, and Anita and Mami have been here about six weeks. It’s September 18, 1961. Anita watches as much TV as she can to distract herself, but this annoys Mami. The first time that Anita saw a commercial for Chiquita bananas, she was terrified. She thought the Chiquita banana lady was saying, “I’m Anita Banana and I’m here to stay.” Lucinda explained that the lady is Chiquita Banana, and “she’s here to say.” Anita feels like she’s seeing signs and ghosts everywhere, and she doesn’t have Chucha to help decipher them.
Anita is terrified by the commercial seemingly because she interprets it as a sign that she has come to the United States for good and will not be able to return home to the Dominican Republic. It distresses her to be seeing so many mysterious signs, especially without having Chucha to help her understand them; Chucha has always helped her to make sense of the world, and without her, Anita feels lost. Her fear and anxiety are a result of her traumatic flight from the Dominican Republic, and they’re also a natural reaction to living in a new place. She doesn’t know how to interpret even normal things like commercials because everything is so new to her.
Themes
Mami is on the phone with Mr. Washburn. She calls him twice a week for news of Papi and Tío Toni. Once again, he has no news. Once Mami hangs up, she says that the U.S. is trying to make Trujillo Junior leave the country and release the prisoners. Papito reacts to the news hopefully, while Mamita sobs. Lucinda, Mami, and Anita cry too.
At this point, Anita’s family feels like they have no choice but to lean on each other and grieve—it seems clear that Papi will not be returning home, even though the still hold out a sliver of hope. As they cry together, Anita is reminded that she has lots of people here who will support her and care for her going forward, even if Papi never comes.
Themes
Anita says that on the day she left the Dominican Republic, she had no idea she was leaving. The men in the house weren’t the SIM; it was Wimpy and some paratroopers coming to airlift Anita and Mami to safety. They flew to a tarmac where Wimpy helped many people board a plane. As the plane took off, Anita wondered if Oscar would know that she was gone. She also thought of all the people and places she might never see again. As she went through Immigration, Anita wondered how she’d make it in this cold, unfamiliar world—but when she saw her entire family waiting for her, she knew she’d be okay.
Again, Anita tells her story so she won’t forget it—and also so that she can give voice to everything she felt as she was fleeing the Dominican Republic. This helps her process her emotions and move forward. At the time, leaving her home country felt like leaving behind everything familiar. But then seeing her family at the airport impressed on Anita that as long as she has her family around, she’s going to be okay. There will always be someone to love her.
Themes
It’s now the end of September and the family hasn’t heard anything about Papi and Tío Toni. Mami refuses to move to Queens (a neighborhood in New York) with the Garcías. That’s where people go when they decide they’re going to stay in the U.S. To give the children something to do, Mami arranges for Anita, Lucinda, and Mundín to sit in on classes at a Catholic school. Anita ends up in a second-grade class led by a teacher named Sister Mary Joseph. Sister Mary Joseph introduces Anita as a “special” student who came to the U.S. to be free. She asks Anita to tell the class about the Dominican Republic, but Anita can’t. She’s too sad. Instead, she thanks the class for letting her into their country.
While the family has begun to grieve for Papi, Mami still can’t let go and move on. She insists that they continue staying at the hotel (conspicuously temporary housing) rather than starting an actual life in Queens, which would imply that they intend to stay. Presumably, she still thinks there’s hope that they could go home. Thanking the second graders for letting her into their country reads as a moment of humility for Anita. As she thanks the schoolchildren, she allows that her own country—while close to her heart in many ways—wasn’t a safe place for her. Mami’s insistence that the children attend school during this time speaks to her and Papi’s belief in the power of education. It won’t do, Mami believes, to let her children do nothing. Getting them an education will give them power as they grow older.
Themes
Get the entire Before We Were Free LitChart as a printable PDF.
Sister Mary Joseph asks Anita to write a composition of what she remembers from the Dominican Republic. She shows Anita how to dedicate her work to Jesus, Mary, and Joseph by putting a cross and J.M.J. at the top of her page. Anita adds Papi and Tío Toni’s initials. She pretends she’s writing in her diary and writes pages. She makes lists of things she misses and writes out Chucha’s sayings. Anita thinks she can hear Chucha telling her to fly free, but she doesn’t know how to be free without Papi. Sister Mary Joseph tells Anita she did a good job, even though she marks up the page in red.
Sister Mary Joseph’s compliment on the composition is somewhat confusing for Anita, since she marks up the paper so much. But no matter what Sister Mary Joseph thinks about it, it’s still a step in the right direction for Anita to be able to write all this. This is especially true since she’s writing for an audience, not just for herself. As she writes for Sister Mary Joseph, Anita starts to find her voice again and heal. It’s also noteworthy that she puts Papi and Toni’s initials at the top of her page alongside Jesus—she seems to understand that they have sacrificed so that she could be free, just like Catholics believe that Jesus did. This transforms Papi and Toni into a holy presence, people who can guide her as she moves forward in her life, even if she never sees them again in the flesh.
Themes
By the end of October, nothing has changed. All Anita knows is that Trujillo Junior refuses to cooperate with the Americans, so she decides to write to Oscar for information. She tells him about fall in New York and then asks how things are in the sultan’s court. But when Anita gives the letter to Papito, he explains that there’s no mail to or from the Dominican Republic. Anita tears the letter up and tosses it out the window. It looks like snow. Though the García girls have told Anita she’ll see snow by Christmas, Anita believes she’ll be home before then. As time passes, Anita wonders if she’ll be here longer than she thought.
In her letter, Anita experiments with writing in code. This mirrors how her parents spoke in code over the past year and it demonstrates that Anita is growing up and learning how to adapt to new situations. While code once felt foreign and dangerous, it’s now something she can use herself to communicate with others. However, the fact that mail has been cut off between the Dominican Republic and the United States shows again how diplomatic sanctions hurt civilians. So many people have family and friends in both countries, and it’s incredibly difficult not to be able to check in. As time passes, Anita has to confront the possibility that Papi’s dream for everyone to go back to the Dominican Republic won’t come true.
Themes
On the way home from school, Anita stops to visit the grocery store. It makes her feel excited and happy to fill a cart and then put everything back. But today, a big man shouts at her. Anita tries to act old enough to be grocery shopping and thinks she has a good chance, since a lady in the elevator recently thought she was 14. The man, however, tells Anita to stay away unless she has an adult with her. He pats her down, looking for stolen items, but Anita screams that it’s a free country when he gropes her chest. Anita wonders if it’s a free country for anyone who isn’t American. The thought of being deported and killed by Trujillo Junior makes Anita run all the way back to the apartment.
Due to the embargo on the Dominican Republic, Anita probably hasn’t seen a well-stocked grocery store in some time. Going to the grocery store is a way for her to dream about what her life in the United States could potentially be life—possibly filled with opportunity and resources she couldn’t have imagined back home. The grocer’s assault, however, presents a different aspect of American life: how racism stands in the way of the American dream. The man seems to be targeting her because he feels that she doesn’t belong, which Anita interprets immediately as a sign that she isn’t really American. Worse, she can’t stand up for herself when he gropes her, because she worries that getting into any trouble—even trouble that someone else started—will mean being deported to a dangerous country. The fantasy of stocking her cart with any food that she wants evaporates as she considers her powerless position as an immigrant and the possibility that she will spend her life living in fear of the Trujillo family.
Themes
When Anita gets to the door, she hears Mamita crying. Mundín opens the door and says that Mr. Washburn is here. Anita fears that Mr. Washburn is here to deport her after the grocery store incident, and everyone inside is crying. Papito takes Anita’s hands and says that Papi and Tío Toni are dead. Mr. Washburn explains that just after the Trujillo family agreed to leave, SIM agents seized the final six prisoners. They took them to the beach, tied them to palm trees, and shot them. Then, they dumped the bodies in the sea. Mami sobs uncontrollably. Anita doesn’t cry until Mr. Washburn is done with his story. Then, she joins the rest of her family in a tight hug.
This is another moment that shows some of Anita’s innocence; she assumes that Mr. Washburn is here because of what happened at the grocery store, when in fact only something much graver could bring him. The murders of Papi and Tío Toni read as a final attempt by the SIM to hurt and terrify those involved in the resistance. In doing so, they take away some of the most important people in Anita’s life and force her to confront the fact that her father is now more than just her father. He’s an internationally known martyr—and he died trying to save the country he loved. While this doesn’t diminish his love for Anita, it shows Anita that at times, politics seem to take precedence over family.
Themes
