Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Refugee, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Trauma and Coming of Age
Injustice and Cruelty vs. Empathy and Social Responsibility
Hope vs. Despair
Family, Displacement, and Culture
Invisibility and the Refugee Experience
Summary
Analysis
Isabel stands in the front of her classroom in Miami with a trumpet in her hand: a gift from her uncle Guillermo. She is auditioning for the orchestra, less than a month after arriving in Miami. After they arrived on the beach, Guillermo took Isabel, Geraldo, Teresa, and baby Mariano into his home until they found an apartment of their own.
Gratz once again ties family to culture, and shows that Isabel is able to connect to her Cuban heritage through the family that she has in Miami. While Isabel thought she had given up her connection to Cuba and her music when she gave up her trumpet, now she is able to rediscover that love with a new trumpet from her uncle.
Themes
Teresa is running a day care in her home, Geraldo had gotten a job driving a taxi, and the Castillos find new jobs as well to begin their own American dreams. Isabel, meanwhile, begins sixth grade, which is difficult because she doesn’t speak English. But there are many other students who speak Spanish, who are warm and welcoming, and who help her learn.
Isabel and her family are able to achieve the promise of a new life in Miami, fulfilling the hope that they had carried across the ocean. Additionally, they are only able to do it with the support of Guillermo and, in Isabel’s case, the help of other children like her.
Themes
Isabel begins to play the trumpet: she auditions with “The Star-Spangled Banner,” the U.S. national anthem. But instead of playing traditionally, she plays it offbeat like salsa. She plays for Iván, lost at sea, and for Lito, who was is in Cuba. She plays for her parents, who had left their homeland, and she plays for herself, so that she would never forget where she came from. As she plays, suddenly she realizes that she can hear a different rhythm, underneath the main one. She is finally counting clave; “she had brought Cuba with her to Miami.”
