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Chapter 27
Themes
and Colors
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Harbor Me, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Freedom and Justice
Stories and Memory
Unity vs. Division
Race and Identity
Summary
Analysis
The next day, Esteban is still gone, and Tiago asks to record himself. He tells the group about his dog, Perrito, who could understand Spanish and English. Tiago sometimes struggles to speak English, and he and his mother have been harassed on the street for speaking Spanish together. He explains how his mother sings and speaks in Spanish at home but lowers her voice in public for fear of being recognized as Puerto Rican and told to “go back to [her] country.”
Tiago’s story ties back to the group’s reaction to Esteban’s ambition to translate his father’s poem and share it in both English and Spanish, both of which they call “American.” Tiago and his mother encounter xenophobia from people who don’t think the same way as the A-R-T-T group. Out of fear of being seen as Puerto Rican, Tiago’s mother starts to take on two different personalities at home and in public. It’s like her identity is fracturing—illustrating how harmful it is for people to suppress key parts of who they are.
Active
Themes
Tiago tells the group about how he gave Perrito his name because the double r’s are hard to pronounce for someone who doesn’t speak Spanish. When Perrito was dying, Tiago held his head in his lap and said his name again and again as the dog’s breathing accelerated and then stopped. In the A-R-T-T room, Tiago starts crying as he remembers Perrito’s death and tells the group that he loves his language, but he sees America making his mother smaller every day.
