Previous
Summary
Themes
and Colors
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Have You Seen Us?, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Prejudice
Immigration and Nationality
Addiction
Religion
Gender
Summary
Analysis
Prologue. Henry Parsons walks along a sidewalk of a southern California shopping mall. The houses that surround the mall are decorated with Christmas lights. Speaking directly to the play’s audience, Henry says that two years ago, he had an encounter with strangers that changed his life. He notes that the run-down mall isn’t a likely place for a life-changing event, there was once a sandwich shop in the corner that he frequented. There, on Christmas Eve two years ago, he and the waitress Adela, whom he describes as an “overweight, uneducated Mexican,” had yet again been playing an “ugly little game” of insulting each other.
The scene’s Christmastime setting subtly foreshadows that religion will affect the play’s plot. Meanwhile, Henry’s contemptuous description of Adela as an “overweight, uneducated Mexican” betrays his prejudices: he looks down on Adela because she doesn’t conform to gendered beauty standards (she’s “overweight”), because she is less educated than he, and because of her ethnic or national origin (“Mexican”).
Active
Themes
Henry explains that the point of his and Adela’s “game” was to see which one could humiliate the other. He attributes this game to Adela accurately perceiving him: she once said that the first time he came into the shop, she knew he was a “borracho perdido,” which he translates as “worthless, lost, useless drunk.” Meanwhile, he claims to have accurately perceived her as a “tub of Mexican grease.” He speculates that he used to go to the sandwich shop because he was “addicted to humiliation” and adds that he’s very familiar with addiction, “being one of Bill’s friends.” Yet he has kept returning to this mall around the anniversary of the aforementioned life-changing event. It is the sole anniversary that matters to him.
Henry doubles down on his prejudices against Adela: when he describes her as a “tub of Mexican grease,” he viscerally emphasizes his disgust at her failure to live up to gendered beauty ideals of thinness (“tub of grease”) and his contempt for her national origin (“Mexican”). Meanwhile, Adela seems to have some personal prejudice against alcoholics, as evidenced by her immediate, dismissive diagnosis of Henry as a “borracho perdido” (lost drunk). Notably, Henry agrees with Adela’s diagnosis of him. Not only does he call himself “one of Bill’s friends”—a euphemism for being an Alcoholics Anonymous member referring to AA’s co-founder Bill Wilson (1895–1971)—but he also suggests that he might be “addicted to humiliation,” indicating that he has a so-called addictive personality above and beyond his biochemical susceptibility to alcohol.
Active
Themes
Henry explains that after Adela humiliated him and he left the sandwich shop that night, he was standing outside when an elderly couple (later revealed to be Solly and Rachel) walked past. One wished him a good night. When Henry, after a distracted pause, wished the couple good night and “happy Christmas,” the elderly man thanked Henry but explained that they were Jewish. Although Henry knew the exchange was “innocent,” he interpreted it as a “rejection” because of his earlier ego-bruising encounter with Adela. After that, Henry at first tried to overcome his “addiction” to the sandwich shop and then planned to return and revenge himself on Adela.
Active
Themes
Henry explains his revenge plan to the audience: he would behave politely to Adela, and then, once she was confused and disoriented, he would launch a sneak attack. Yet when he entered the sandwich shop, he heard Adela singing along with the radio—and was shocked to discover she had a lovely voice reminiscent of some famous singer, though he couldn’t put his finger on which one. As soon as she saw him, she stopped singing and—to cover her own embarrassment—greeted him as a “borracho perdido.”
Active
Themes
Get the entire Have You Seen Us? LitChart as a printable PDF.
"My students can't get enough of your charts and their results have gone through the roof." -Graham S.
The Sandwich Shop. In a scenic flashback to Henry and Adela’s encounter that fateful night, Henry pretends to ignore Adela while she makes his usual sandwich and calls him a “sucio viejo borracho perdido,” translating the words he might not know. When she brings the sandwich to his table, he tells her that’s not what he wants. She points out that he always orders the same sandwich and tells him to eat it or leave, but he refuses—and says that she can call the police if she likes, but that the police will ask for her papers and that she might be an “illegal immigrante.”
Slowly, Adela takes back Henry’s usual sandwich and asks for his order. He gloatingly orders a roast beef sandwich with modifications and coffee. Seething, Adela returns to the counter, throws out Henry’s usual sandwich, and turns up the radio as Henry takes out a book. With faux politeness, Henry asks Adela to turn down the radio. After a pause, she does. Then Henry admits that it’s static he dislikes, not the music—he liked the song she was singing to when he entered.
Active
Themes
Adela makes Henry’s new sandwich and brings it to him along with coffee. While “looking for an opening,” she sees that he’s using a mailing card for a bookmark and examines it. When she asks what it is, he—“hoping to catch her”—challenges her to read it if she can. She cautiously reads “Have You Seen Us?” and identifies the card as a “missing peoples” notice. Henry snootily informs her that it’s “missing persons,” says he has a whole stack of such cards that he uses for bookmarks, and he explains that this one is of Isabella and Adriana Larranaga. Contemptuously, Adela corrects his pronunciation: “Larrañaga.” Henry, calling her “Tubby,” thanks her for the correction.
Active
Themes
Adela says that Henry is a book-worm know-it-all who needs to learn Spanish—so she’ll teach him. Then she identifies Adriana and Isabella as mother and daughter and claims to “know their story.” Though Henry feigns disinterest, Adela tells him that Adriana’s husband was no doubt beating her. She also says that although Adriana must have wanted a divorce, the judge awarded custody of Isabella to the husband because both men were “gringos,” and the husband was a Vietnam veteran. Adela contemptuously refers to this as “American justice” and then describes Adriana’s “Mexican justice”—running away with Isabella to Mexico where the Vietnam-vet husband can’t find and shoot them.
Henry tells Adela that her story is boring and orders her back behind the counter. Adela tells him that her story is true even if he doesn’t like it—no one cared about Adriana because she was Mexican, whereas Henry and Adriana’s opponents in the story are all men and “gringos.” Speaking directly to the mailing card, Adela warns Adriana not to return to the U.S. When Henry points out that he isn’t American, Adela retorts that he’s still a “gringo”—whereas she is Mexican! Struck by her national pride, Henry announces that she has won this round because he can’t call himself a South African with pride anymore, though he used to be able to.
While eating his sandwich, Henry watches Adela work and slowly “see[s] her as something more than just a target for his scorn and contempt.” He asks whether she becomes “homesick.” At first Adela doesn’t understand the word; then she realizes he means “nostalgico” or “morriña”—and asks whether he’s going to report her to Immigration. Henry says he certainly won’t, commenting that South Africans have had enough of “that back home in the old days.” He tells her he only mentioned it because he formerly got homesick. Adela replies that she gets nostalgic for her hometown and for the time her grandmother who raised her was alive—Adela’s mother died young, and Adela’s father is missing. She misses her brother when they talk on the phone, too.
Active
Themes
Henry tells Adela that he “hardly ever” becomes homesick now, but when he first arrived in the U.S., he would talk and sing to himself in Afrikaans because he feared he would forget the language. When Adela asks about his singing, he sings her the Stellenbosch University rugby song in Afrikaans. Though Adela finds his singing comical, he tells her that the song evokes for him mountains he climbed in South Africa and baboons he saw. He would sing the song and miss understanding the lives of the people around him—something he can’t do in the U.S., where he sometimes feels he doesn’t even speak the same language as Americans.
Adela informs Henry that he’s still terribly homesick. She’s about to say something more when he recognizes the song she was singing come on the radio and asks her to turn it up. When she does, he begs her to sing. She refuses. He begins singing along instead. She declares his singing awful, turns off the radio, and explains that that song is her song—it’s called “Adelita,” the diminutive of her name. Henry calls “Adela” and “Adelita” beautiful names of which Adela herself is unworthy, but then he asks her again to sing the song for him, telling her they can start loathing each other again afterward.
Active
Themes
When Adela tells Henry to go to hell, he laughingly accuses her of being shy, calls her stupid, and tells her she shouldn’t be shy about her “beautiful voice.” Then he suggests that if she won’t sing it, she should teach him the words so he can. She refuses. When he urges her again to sing, she turns her back to him and sings the song softly. Afterward, he thanks her sincerely, calls Adela’s beautiful voice a “mistake” on God’s part, and says she sounds like the wonderful singer Kathleen Ferrier, whom God later afflicted with throat cancer. He thanks Adela again.
Henry eats his sandwich while Adela works. After a moment, Adela begins singing again—the whole song in full voice. She turns to face Henry as she does so. When she finishes, he claps and tells her she’ll win their game tonight—he has nothing to equal her song. Adela is visibly happy with Henry’s praise. When he asks her what the song is about, she loosely translates the Spanish lyrics: and explains that the song is about a woman named Adelita, beloved of the soldiers, whom the sergeant “idolatraba.” When Adela can’t find the English word for “idolatraba,” Henry suggests “idolize” or “love.”
Active
Themes
Adela says that Adelita goes everywhere with the sergeant, as soldaderas do. When Henry tries to sound out “soldadera,” Adela asks whether he hasn’t heard of the soldaderas or Margarita Neri. When he admits he hasn’t, Adela tells him that he, “Mr. Professor,” is ignorant: the soldaderas were female soldiers during the Mexican Revolution, of whom Margarita Neri was the most famous. Adela’s grandmother was a soldadera who used to tell her stories about Emiliano Zapata. Henry says he knows of Zapata from the Marlon Brando film, which depicted Zapata as a “very brave man in the revolution.” Adela agrees with this characterization. She says her grandmother cooked for Zapata once, and she mournfully adds that her grandmother has since died.
Active
Themes
Henry comments that Adela misses her grandmother a lot. Adela agrees, saying that her grandmother taught her to sing “Adelita” and other songs, including “Cielito Lindo” and “Besame Mucho.” She sings parts of these latter two songs for Henry, both of which he delightedly recognizes. Then she tells him that during her grandmother’s final illness, her grandmother would ask her to sing—but would the cry and tell Adela that she should immigrate to the U.S. because Mexico was now “no good.”
Active
Themes
Henry asks how long Adela has lived in the U.S. She says two years—and then asks Henry about himself. Self-mockingly clearing his throat, Henry gives Adela his full name, his age (63), and his tenure in the U.S. (15 years). He says that he used to teach Medieval literature in college, though his students did not appreciate it much. When Adela asks about his family, he explains that he’s been divorced for 10 years. He has a daughter named Kate but hasn’t seen her since she was a young girl—though back then, “she was [his] best friend.”
Active
Themes
Adela, indicating the mailing card, asks whether Henry’s wife fled with his daughter. Henry says no: his wife did leave him, but without debate—he’s not “loading [his] Vietnam gun” and hunting them down. When Adela asks what did happen, Henry tells her that she was right about him: he is an alcoholic, and 10 years prior, his wife Loretta asked him to choose between his marriage and his drinking. Adela, reacting as if her guess has been confirmed, says Henry chose drinking. Henry says the situation is more complicated. Miming an AA meeting, he describes going to meetings every Saturday when he lived in New York.
Active
Themes
Adela asks how long it’s been since Henry’s last drink. He admits that he binged on bourbon a month ago on Christmas Eve, after his last humiliating encounter with Adela. Yet, resentfully, he lets Adela know that he still attends meetings. His daughter has told him she’ll come visit him if he can stay sober for a year—but he can only ever manage 10 or 11 months. He hints that he’s sabotaging his own sobriety because he doesn’t want Kate seeing his life “even if [he] was sober.”
Adela calls Henry a “sad man.” Henry points out that Adela immediately identified him as such. Adela agrees that she identified his alcoholism right away: “another borracho perdido.” When Henry asks whether she’s calling him “hopeless,” Adela explains that her alcoholic man was: he kept promising he would change, but he never did, and eventually he left for Mexico City. Henry asks whether Adela kicked the man out. Embarrassedly, Adela admits that she didn’t: “I was too much . . . you know.” Henry says he understands. He asks the man’s name and whether Adela had children with him. Adela says his name was Roberto—and, no, there were no children. Henry says he understands: when Adela first looked at Henry, she saw Roberto. Adela agrees.
Adela tentatively suggests that maybe Henry could be “different”—he could return to his family, assuage his homesickness, and stop drinking. Henry says he should have returned to his family a long time ago, but now it’s too late—and in any case, his homesickness is for a past South Africa: contemporary South Africa isn’t interested in what he teaches, and teach his subject is all he can do. Adela, over Henry’s protests, tells him that he needs continued sobriety and a soldadera-like “strong woman” to “kick [his] arse.”
Active
Themes
Solly and Rachel, holding hands, enter the sandwich shop. They whisper, and then Solly walks up to the counter, behind which Adela has retreated. Meanwhile, Henry looks fixedly at the couple. Solly asks Adela whether the shop was “tziken sup.” Adela asks Henry what Solly is ordering; when Henry asks whether Solly wants soup with “matzoh ball dumplings,” Solly agrees and thanks him. Adela tells Solly that today, Tuesday, they have vegetable soup—they only have chicken soup on Thursday. There’s also beef chili and the sandwich menu board. Solly declines these offerings and leaves with Rachel.
Active
Themes
Henry, taking his coffee to the counter for a refill, smiles humorlessly and tells Adela that Solly and Rachel are “amazing.” When a confused Adela asks what’s so amazing about an elderly couple, Henry says that they seem quite confused and that he wouldn’t be surprised to receive a missing-persons mailing card with their photos—but then he clarifies that it’s “amazing” that he knows them: last Christmas Eve, after Adela won her and Henry’s usual hateful game, Henry encountered Solly and Rachel outside and wished them a “happy Christmas,” at which point Solly thanked Henry but explained they were Jewish. When Adela asks what the issue is, Henry explains that he isn’t religious and wasn’t trying to be a “crusading Christian,” but after Adela humiliated him, Solly’s correction felt like “one fucking rejection too many.”
Henry goes on to tell Adela that this morning, he went for a beautiful cliffside walk. He felt hopeful because he had been sober for three months. But on his way home, he crossed a parking lot and saw a Star of David— “the one Hitler pinned on the clothes of little boys and girls”—with the words “Fuck You Jew” beside it cut into the tarmac of somebody’s parking space. As Henry narrates his story, he wipes off the chalkboard menu and draws what he saw on it in chalk. Adela, alarmed, tries to wipe away what he’s drawn and asks him to stop.
Henry vehemently tells Adela that he isn’t done. He tells her he can’t speak the words he has written. When she tells him he “mustn’t,” he asks her whether she knows why. She tells him it’s “ugly.” When he agrees but tells her that’s not why he mustn’t say the words aloud, Adela tells him that alcoholism is one thing, but he’s being crazy. She asks him to eat and leave. Henry retorts that he’s extremely sane and has reached an unfortunate peak of self-knowledge.
Active
Themes
Abruptly, Henry calms down and asks Adela to sit with him so he can explain. After a pause, Adela sits with him. He asks her whether she’s seen the Sigourney Weaver movie with the alien and mimes an alien monster with his arm. When Adela says the monster was “horrible” and she didn’t watch the movie, Henry—pointing to the menu—tells her that the monster is “those three words,” which exist inside of him as a South African, though he doesn’t know how this South African heritage infected him. He attempted to escape the monstrosity—an attempt that motivated his immigration to the U.S.—but he wasn’t successful.
When Adela denies Henry’s monstrosity, he insists on it, confessing to her that when he looked down at the Star of David and “those three words,” they echoed inside him. Moreover, rather than efface the graffiti or spit on it or sob, he just stared at it and walked away “for someone else to read.” He tells Adela that when he saw the graffiti, he felt “recognition”—and that when Solly and Rachel corrected him after he wished them a good Christmas, “something” came to life inside him that also moved in him when the couple came into the sandwich shop that very night.
Active
Themes
Henry asks what Adela perceived when she looked at Solly and Rachel. Adela, confused, said she saw an elderly couple from somewhere other than the U.S. Henry replies that he saw “a walking illustration of anti-Semitic propaganda.” Without Henry or Adela noticing, Solly and Rachel come back to the door of the sandwich shop. Meanwhile, Henry monologues to Adela that the “monster” is “prejudice,” a “hatred and fear of anything that is different.” The monster is essentially the same, whether it’s directed at Jewish people, Black people, or whomever—and the monster is local to South Africa. He claims that he thought he’d gotten rid of the monster inside himself, but he was wrong.
Adela, spotting Solly and Rachel, tells Henry to stop talking. Then she hurries to the chalkboard menu, which she checks for any remainder of what Henry wrote. Henry looks up and sees the couple. When Solly smiles at him, Henry can’t smile back—he just looks down at his sandwich. Solly goes up to the counter and tells Adela that he and Rachel couldn’t find food elsewhere—and then, pointing at the wiped-clean chalkboard menu, suggests that this shop doesn’t have anything, either. Adela hurriedly tells Solly all the food items they still have, and Solly ends up ordering turkey sandwiches with pickle. Afterward, with “deep and protective love,” Solly leads Rachel to a table. They sit down.
Active
Themes
Adela makes the sandwiches and turns on the radio. Henry pretends to read. Solly, after indicating Henry to Rachel, addresses Henry, telling him that he’s reading a “good book.” Henry says it’s “okay.” Solly asks whether Henry has a lot of books, and Henry admits that he does. Adela brings the sandwiches to Solly and Rachel. When Solly replies “A sheynem dank,” Adela asks Henry what it means. Henry tentatively translates it as “thank you.” Solly agrees and asks whether Henry speaks Yiddish. Henry says no and goes back to reading. Solly, to Rachel, says Henry is “in the book again. Just like Aaron.”
Solly quietly urges Rachel to eat her sandwich. When she refuses, he quietly sings her a song in Hebrew. As Solly sings, Henry gestures to Adela to turn off the radio, which she does. After the song ends, Rachel brushes away tears and starts eating her sandwich. Solly, who realizes that Henry is looking fixedly at them, tells Henry that the rabbi has said that crying is fine for Rachel if it allows her to eat. Henry asks Solly what the song was about. Solly explains that he used to sing the song with his son Aaron while Rachel prepared the family’s food, but now he sings it to Rachel because Aaron is “gone.”
Active
Themes
Henry asks again what the song means. Solly says that in the song, Solly asks his son what he wants, and the son says he wants children whom he can teach the Torah, a long life in which to praise God, and bread to bless. Henry asks Solly to sing again. Solly, abashed, claims that it’s “not good.” Henry insists that the song was beautiful, and Adela, eavesdropping, also asks Solly to sing. After a quiet conversation with Rachel, Solly gently beats out a rhythm on the table while both he and Rachel sing. After they finish, they resume eating their sandwiches.
Active
Themes
Henry stands up to leave, but he stays put, clearly feeling somehow constrained. He sits back down. After he and Solly stare at each other for a moment, Henry asks Solly to forgive him. Solly nods, says that “of course” he forgives Henry—and then asks what Henry did. When Henry admits that he hated Solly, Solly says he knew that—but he asks why. Henry says that he hated Solly because he was ugly and Jewish. When Solly replies, “I still am,” Henry shakes his head. He says that Solly is “beautiful” and that he loves him. Solly replies that in that case, God will also forgive Henry. After a moment, Solly and Rachel continue to eat while Henry stands and exits the shop.
Epilogue. Henry is standing alone on the sidewalk, as he was at the beginning of the play. In the background is the sandwich shop, with Adela at the counter and Solly and Rachel sitting at a table. Addressing the audience directly, Henry says that he didn’t know when he left the sandwich shop that he wouldn’t see Adela, Solly, or Rachel again—he just felt that he shouldn’t say anything else and that “the journey from hate to love was the shortest one [his] heart has ever made.”
Active
Themes
Henry admits to the audience that the only thing he regrets about the incident is not seeing Adela again. Two weeks after the incident, he returned to the shop with a Kathleen Ferrier record for Adela, only to find that the shop had closed. He felt that he and Adela, after all their cruelty to each other, had earned a second-chance friendship—but while he tried to find her, he didn’t have a photo of her to make a “missing persons” mailing card. To demonstrate what he means, he takes out a mailing card from the book he’s holding and says it’s his sole “souvenir” of Adela. He quotes it—“Have you seen us?” To this Henry answers, “I like to believe I did.” Then he wishes the audience “good night and . . . happy holidays!” He exits.
