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Chapter 1
Themes
and Colors
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Return to Sender, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Immigration in America
Coming of Age
Democracy
American Values
Home and Belonging
Love, Friendship, and Human Connection
Summary
Analysis
Nameless Farm. As Tyler sits down to breakfast on his first morning back home, Mom starts pressuring him to go over and meet “the girls” (Mari, Luby, and Ofie). Furthermore, she wants Tyler to bring them a plate of brownies and some old toys like he’s a sixth-grade “Santa Claus.” Tyler is still leery; since the terror attacks of September 11, 2001, he has been a bit anxious about “strangers from other countries,” but it’s clear Mom won’t take no for an answer.
Tyler was relieved when he found out that his family was going to be able to keep the farm, but even with this stressor off his plate, he still must undergo the painful process of growing up. Mom encourages him to face other things that frighten or trouble him, too. Tyler’s fear of strangers offers one of the book’s indictments against the way America and Americans reacted in the early years of the 21st century toward perceived outsiders.
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Mari, Luby, and Ofie introduce themselves to Tyler in the doorway without inviting him in. He notices how good the girls’ English is as Ofie (the family’s “loudmouth,” Tyler concludes), talks about coming up from North Carolina. Tyler answers that the farm has a cow named Carolina. They’ve always named the show cows after states even if they’ve never really settled on a good name for the farm itself. Ofie interrupts his thoughts to say that she and Luby were born in North Carolina. Luby blurts out that Mari was born in Mexico, and Mari flees to her room, upset.
The farm’s lack of a name explains why each chapter starts with a possible name (this section begins with “Nameless Farm”), as if Tyler is testing potential names to see what sticks. And, in a way, this suggests one of the book’s central truths: life itself is about embracing change and a willingness to try new things, and part of growing up involves learning to accept this gracefully. By renaming the farm over and over, Tyler is thus practicing a skill he will develop over the course of the book. Readers already know that Mari, her father, and her uncles are undocumented immigrants, but Luby’s accidental confession is the first proof that anyone in the Paquette family receives. Mari is upset because it’s information that endangers her and her family.
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At dinner that night, Mom peppers Tyler with questions about his meeting Mari, Ofie, and Luby. He hopes she doesn’t expect him to become their best friend just because they live on the farm now, a feeling that intensifies when she describes her plan to invite them into the house to help with chores and when Ben suggests that the sisters could also help alleviate the loneliness Grandma has suffered since Gramps’ death. Tyler hates the reminder that, with Gramps gone, Ben off to college soon, and Dad still sleeping a lot as he recovers, he’s going to be seriously outnumbered by girls.
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Still confused about it, Tyler also describes how upset Mari got when Luby said she was born in Mexico. Mom fails to divert the conversation before Ben can explain that Mari might not want Tyler to know she’s not an America citizen.
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Tyler escapes to the hayloft in the barn after dinner, taking along his telescope. Gramps always said that it helped to look at “the bigger picture” if he was feeling upset. Much to his chagrin, he finds that Mari has already taken over his favorite spot. Even more annoyingly, he’s so startled to find her there that he almost drops the telescope. She catches it just in time. Now he owes her. Mari has never seen a telescope before, and Tyler enjoys explaining how it works, helping her see the stars through it, and pointing out a few of his favorite constellations. He likes being the teacher rather than the student for a change.
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Before he knows it, Tyler is telling Mari about how sad he’s been since Gramps died. Mari understands; her own grandmother died last December. Tyler asks about her mother, and Mari retorts that her Mamá is still alive. She’s just on a trip. After a while, Tyler asks Mari what brings her to the hayloft. Usually, she says, she goes up there to watch the birds, which she knows as golondrinas. Tyler teaches her their name in English, swallows, and tells her that they’ll be leaving soon for their annual migration to Mexico. Like the mariposas—the monarch butterflies—a delighted Mari says. Tyler points southwest, toward Mexico, just as Papá begins calling for Mari to come home.
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Back inside, Mom and Dad are waiting for Tyler at the kitchen table. Mom still isn’t sure, but Dad insists that Tyler needs to know what’s going on. It is illegal, as Tyler knows, to hire Mexican people who don’t have the right documents to work in the country. The three new workers (Papá, Armando, and Felipe) showed Mom social security cards. But Mari’s reaction that afternoon strongly suggests that some of the Cruz family are “not legal.” Tyler doesn’t want “illegal people” living on the farm. He asks about calling the police. But Dad reminds him that it’s the only way the farm can stay afloat while he recovers. As much as Tyler has always hated being the baby of the family, he recognizes that morally ambiguous situations like this are hard. He wishes he was still a little kid.
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Esteemed Mr. President. As a school assignment early that September, Mari writes a letter to the American President. Most of the other kids are writing about what they did over the summer, but Mari has much more important things to think about. It’s hard living in a divided family, she says—just like President Abraham Lincoln once warned in a famous speech. Mari worries about such divisions at all levels, from the broadest family of humankind, which faces the existential threat of climate change, to the smaller family of a country, to her nuclear family which is divided in two by citizenship.
What’s really important, Mari continues, is working together, the way Tyler’s family does when they make decisions about the farm (even if they haven’t been able to agree yet on a name) or the way a democracy gives every person a vote. Mari has seen the president on the television claiming he wants democracy for the whole world, and she takes him at his word. Her letter is her vote for the world she wants to see. It’s a world in which neither Papá, Tío Armando, and Tío Felipe nor the Paquettes would get in trouble for helping each other out. A world in which she wouldn’t live in fear of her family being broken up by immigration agents.
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Mari’s request for the world she wants segues into her musing about the experiences she’s had since coming to Vermont. She writes about how lonely and kind Grandma is and about global warming, which Mr. Bicknell is explaining to the students in class. She also writes about Tyler’s plan to survive by building a community on the farm, a community that includes his family and hers, but also everyone in his class, including mean boys like Ronnie and Clayton. Mari knows she shouldn’t want to exclude them from the farm, especially if she doesn’t want to be excluded from America. But it’s hard, because they taunt her and call her names.
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Mari describes how Ronnie and Clayton take the bus home after school one day and torment her and Tyler on the ride. Tyler refuses to talk to her when they get off the bus. Later that night, when she asks him if they are still friends, he wants to know if she and her family are in the country illegally. She confesses that they are, and he tells her that he’d prefer to lose the farm than betray his country. This, Mari writes, is the most painful experience of her life.
Mari says that Mr. Bicknell is planning to mail the letter to the president for her because he thinks it’s important that the president know what’s going on in his country. Without names or addresses, Mr. B. promises, neither Mari nor anyone else can get in trouble. She agrees with Mr. B that it’s important to share her story. And it’s fitting that she’s writing it on September 15, the eve of Mexico’s Independence Day. She promises that that night at midnight, she will raise the traditional cry of “¡Viva México!” facing toward the country of her birth, then add “¡Viva los Estados Unidos del Mundo!” (Long live the United States of the World) facing toward Washington, D.C.
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