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Chapter 4
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
Christmas Tears Farm. Tyler feels certain that this will be the worst Christmas ever. Not only is it the first one without Gramps, but Mom and Dad have really cracked down on him, Ben, and Sara since Tío Felipe’s arrest. The Cruz family is beside themselves with worry. And stepped-up immigration enforcement has made it too risky for the family to run the little cut-your-own Christmas tree operation Gramps started back in 1995. Tyler feels the sting of losing that tradition, and he’s also missing the cut of the profits Gramps always gave him for his help.
Christmastime serves Tyler with a series of rude reminders of how much his life has changed in the last year. Gramps is gone. The Cruzes became his friends, but now the fragile balance of their lives has been shattered. It’s not worth taking any more risks. And it’s important to note that the question of illegal immigration isn’t just one facing the Cruzes, but one facing the Paquettes, too: they stand to lose their farm if they can’t afford workers to run it.
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Tío Felipe’s situation is really bad. First, he will face a trial for breaking the law by fleeing the traffic stop. After he’s served his time, he’ll face a deportation hearing. It will be a long time, everyone fears, before they see him again. There’s one small silver lining, however: he’s currently in the nearby county jail. So, after Mom finds a lawyer and arranges for Ms. Ramírez to translate, she signs up for a timeslot to visit. Tyler insists on going alone, and after just a bit of wheedling, Mom relents.
The consequences of breaking the law are serious, as they should be. Again, the book doesn’t ask readers to excuse Tío Felipe for breaking them. It instead asks them to recognize his humanity and to acknowledge the fear and stress that living in the country illegally—and now his separation from his loved ones—must be putting him through. Mom’s allowing Tyler to accompany her to the jail is a clear sign that he’s growing up; his family is willing to let him take on more adult responsibilities and experiences.
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A few days before the scheduled visit—which will take place on Christmas Eve—Mari and Tyler are outside watching the stars when she says she feels like Mary and Joseph in the Christmas story. She and her sisters have just told Grandma about the Mexican tradition of posadas, a festival in which children go from house to house just like Mary and Joseph did, only at the end they’re invited into one home for a huge party. But in real life, not in games, Mari worries that there will never be a place for her family in America. Tyler says there’s room for Mari and her family on the farm.
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Tyler is teaching Mari the winter constellations. Now he points out the Pleiades, or the Seven Sisters. Mari can only see six stars. The seventh is too small to be seen without a telescope, Tyler says, and the Greek myth from which it gets its name (which he barely remembers) had something to do with a sister getting lost. As always when the idea of someone being lost comes up, Mari is instantly interested. And now, finally, she tells Tyler how Mamá went back to Mexico and never returned, and how Papá went looking for her but could find no trace of where she went. She starts crying. Tyler suggests that Mamá, is like the seventh sister, still just lost. Mari appreciates him listening; she can’t talk to her family about this. Tyler understands. Since Gramps died, he doesn’t feel like he really has anyone to talk to either.
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Everyone in the Paquette family is determined to make the Cruz family’s Christmas special. When Tyler and Mom go into town to go Christmas shopping, Tyler brings a shopping list and some money to buy gifts on Papá’s behalf, and he and Mom pick out presents of their own for Mari, Ofie, and Luby. Tyler chooses a box of stationery and some glow-in the dark stars for his friend Mari.
On the morning of Christmas Eve, Mari brings a letter for Tío Felipe to the house. Mom says they won’t be able to give it to him, but Tyler puts it into his pocket and promises Mari he’ll deliver it for her. He’s nervous as they enter the jail, but he likes Tío Felipe’s lawyer, a young man named Caleb Calhoun, and the deputy is in a good mood. Entering the visitation room, however, he sees what Mom was saying about delivering the letter. They’ll be talking with Tío Felipe via telephone while sitting on opposite sides of a thick glass window.
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But, after Caleb and Mom are done talking to Tío Felipe (with Ms. Ramírez translating), Tyler knows what to do. After answering Tío Felipe’s questions about his brothers, nieces, and his favorite cows, Tyler holds Mari’s letter up to the glass, page by page. When Tío Felipe is done reading it, he thanks Tyler for bringing Christmas early.
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And the day keeps getting better. Tyler and Mom get home to find Sara speaking in Spanish into the phone. She thinks it’s Mamá! Tyler races to the trailer to fetch Mari.
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Querido Tío Felipe. Mari’s Christmas Eve letter to Tío Felipe describes how worried she, Papá, Tío Armando, Ofie, and Luby have been about him. She thanks him for leading the immigration authorities away from the family and tells him about her petition to the Virgin of Guadalupe for his safety. She tells him that, although Ofie and Luby had wish lists a mile long for Christmas, when they found out she was writing this letter, they wanted him to know the only thing they really wanted was for him to come home.
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Querido Tío (31 December 2005). In another letter to Tío Felipe, Mari confesses how much she misses him, but she says that writing letters makes him feel close to her, just as it does when she writes to Abuelita or Mamá. From Mrs. Paquette, she knows that Tío Felipe is the only Spanish speaker currently in the jail and that both the deputies and the other prisoners feel bad for how lonely this must make him. She also knows he must miss his guitar as much as she misses hearing him sing. But although they can now send him little things like a box of cookies, they can’t get his guitar into the jail.
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Mari’s letter goes back to describe the past week. On Christmas Eve, the mystery person who might be Mamá calls the Paquette’s house. But by the time Mari gets there, the caller has hung up. Although Sara presses a few buttons to make the phone return a call to the last number, no one answers. Then, the Cruzes call Papá’s parents, Abuelote and Abuelota, lying about why Tío Felipe can’t come to the phone. Caleb is trying to get the jail to allow him to have a calling card so he can call them himself.
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Finally, Mari describes the Christmas gifts Tyler gave her, including some glow-in-the-dark stars and the stationery on which she’s writing the letter. She sends one to Tío Felipe, since he can’t see the night sky himself in his jail cell.
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Querido Tío (7 January 2006). In this letter, Mari describes how on Three Kings Day (the day the Three Kings are said to have visited and brought gifts to the baby Jesus), Grandma helps her, Ofie, and Luby make a traditional king cake, using the baby from Ofie’s dollhouse as Jesus. Traditionally, whoever finds it must host a big party on February 2 (traditionally celebrated as the day of Jesus’s baptism, according to Mari). She’s the one who finds the Jesus figurine, but she won’t host the Candlemas Party if Tío Felipe isn’t out of jail and able to come.
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Mari worries that kids at school will find out about Tío Felipe’s arrest and give her grief about it. Ms. Ramírez has promised to keep quiet, though, and she’s becoming almost like a family member at this point. Ofie has even started teasing her about her White boyfriend. The Cruz family still hasn’t heard from Mamá, but Papá has spoken to a friend in North Carolina who says that he has given the Cruzes’ new phone number to a few callers who have called their old apartment and asked.
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Querido Tío (14 January 2006). Mari writes this note quickly, when Ms. Ramírez unexpectedly drops by on her way to visit Tío Felipe, who is now allowed to receive letters and packages. The Cruz family has just learned that his first hearing date is set for January 20. If all goes well, maybe Tío Felipe can come to the Candlemas party after all! Mari encloses another letter with hers, written by a White girl Tío Felipe met at the ill-fated party he attended with Ben (later identified as Alyssa). This girl also wants to visit Tío Felipe, if he’ll allow her to.
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Querido Tío (21 January 2006). Mari describes how sad she is to learn from Mrs. Paquette that Tío Felipe’s first hearing didn’t give any answers about what will happen to him. Mari also tells her uncle that Abuelote and Abuelota have learned about his imprisonment, from Tío Armando’s wife. Abuelota worries that he will be tortured or mistreated in jail, but compared to Mexican jails, the American ones are, in Papá’s words, like “country clubs.”
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Querido Tío (28 January 2006). One week later, there’s good news at last—the judge declared that Tío Felipe had served enough time in jail for the crime of running from the traffic stop. She ordered no further punishment. The bad news is that this means he’s in the hands of the Department of Homeland Security, and everyone is worried that they’ll decide to deport him. In the meantime, however, his lady friend Alyssa—who has done humanitarian work in Mexico—continues to visit him in the jail.
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Querido Tío (4 February 2006). Sadly, Mari’s hopes for Candlemas are dashed when the Department of Homeland Security decides to deport Tío Felipe. In this letter, Mari tells him how much she, Ofie, and Luby will him and his sense of humor. She also tells him that Papá has instituted a new family rule—no television in Spanish. It happens after Papá asked Ofie to repeat a request she’d made in English in Spanish. She refused on the grounds that she’s an American and no one can tell her what to do. Mari, fully embodying her role as the little mother, eventually convinces her sisters to play along. Candlemas is the same day as Groundhog Day, and the superstitions about both foretell a lot more winter to come. Mari bids farewell to Tío Felipe with the hope of seeing him again, someday.
