86 pages • 2 hours read
Elizabeth AcevedoClap When You Land
Fiction | Novel/Book in Verse | YA | Published in 2020A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more. For select classroom titles, we also provide Teaching Guides with discussion and quiz questions to prompt student engagement.
Chapters 12-15Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 12 Summary: “Yahaira”
Yahaira reexamines Mami’s turbulent marriage to Papi. Yahaira had assumed the tension between her parents was her fault because she was so close with her father: “I used to think it was me, that Papi / & I had chess” (230). Now, Yahaira reconsiders the depths and nuance of her mother’s unhappiness as well as the possibility that her mother knew about her father’s second marriage.
Over dinner with her Tía Lidia, Yahaira says that she is rethinking schools she will apply too. Angered by Yahaira’s sudden announcement and the rift that has opened between them, Mami storms out of the room. Tía Lidia explains that Mami’s and Papi’s marriage was difficult and that now in the wake of his death, Mami is struggling to cope.
When Yahaira receives her sister’s friend request, she is stunned to learn that Papi had a second daughter as well as a second wife. Mami tells Yahaira that the other woman was her friend and how she met Papi through Camino’s mother. Mami tells Yahaira that due to her high status as a general’s daughter, Papi felt as though he was forced to hide his true nature with her: “But with her, with the woman who was my friend, / who was his childhood friend, he could take off the mask” (244). After Camino’s mother died, Papi refused to abandon the girl, his other daughter. As Yahaira processes the new information, she realizes her resentment for Camino. It occurs to Yahaira that this new half-sister likely feels the same for her.
Chapter 13 Summary: “Camino”
Camino receives Yahaira’s response to her friend request: a host of questions and a suggestion that they should video chat. Camino does not immediately respond, first considering what she wants to say. Overwhelmed, Camino tells Tía Solana that she has reached out to Yahaira. Camino begins to weep, and Tía Solana holds her. Later, Camino settles on a brief response to Yahaira expressing her interest in continuing the conversation: “Hello. Yes. / We should talk” (252).
Chapter 14 Summary: “Yahaira”
Yahaira considers Papi in relation to chess’s strict rules of dichotomies. She thinks of his moving between the Dominican Republic and New York like a piece moving across the tiles on a game board and considers that Camino is the reason she never heard from him when he was away. She wonders at her father’s reasons for creating so much subterfuge in his own life: “Everything has a purpose, Papi taught me. / But what was his in keeping / such big secrets” (254).
The next day, Mami interrupts the silence of their dinner to tell Yahaira that they must plan for her future, stating that they only have one another. Although Mami refuses to discuss Papi’s body, Yahaira has decided that she is going to the Dominican Republic to attend Papi’s burial. She uses Mami’s credit card to buy an airline ticket, already possessing a passport that Papi encouraged her to get for chess tournaments abroad.
Yahaira has told only Dre about her plans to meet Camino. Dre is surprised at the news but ultimately supports Yahaira’s line of thinking when she suggests that Yahaira is doing the right thing. Yahaira is annoyed by Dre’s quick assessment, considering the situation too complex for such a quick judgment: “how would anyone know / so easily right from wrong” (260).
Chapter 15 Summary: “Camino”
Camino contemplates Yahaira’s impending visit, resenting the ease with which she has gained a passport and the privilege to go anywhere in the world she pleases, comparing Yahaira’s easy acquiring of the document with the various trials and unending forms Camino would have to go through for the same opportunity: “no one wondered if she would / want to overstay her visa” (261). However, Camino ultimately tempers her snap judgment of the sister. She muses that despite Yahaira’s privilege, she is impressed by her willingness to travel to the Dominican Republic even if it means disobeying her mother: “I [...] have to admire what she will do to / get here. / & I hope that she will admire / all I will do to get there, too” (261).
A few days later, Camino walks through the streets in sneakers that she realizes likely belonged to Yahaira before her father brought them to her. It has been three weeks since Carline gave birth to Luciano, and she is bringing vitamins and cloth diapers to her friend. Camino’s thoughts turn to Luciano, whose breathing is still labored and shallow. In the United States, Luciano would still be in an intensive care ward. When she arrives at Carline’s, she inspects Luciano the way Tía Solana has taught her to. Carline tells her that they are struggling to stay afloat and that she is considering dropping out of school. Camino considers that in her correspondence with Yahaira, it seemed her half-sister was outraged by Papi’s second family, but she knows it is a common occurrence in the same way Carline’s dropping out of school would also be a common occurrence. She leaves, promising to check on Luciano again the following week.
Since her previous encounter with El Cero, Camino has been avoiding the beachfront, but as she grows more restless, she is no longer able to go without feeling the water on her skin. Camino returns to the ocean, and El Cero returns, calling to her. When Camino tells him that she does not need anything from him, he asserts himself, warning that he needs her. When she returns home, her tablet is ringing with notifications from Yahaira. After dinner, Camino delays until finally answering Yahaira’s video call. When she comes face-to-face with Yahaira for the first time, she is grateful to have acquired the new relationship out of her father’s tragic death.
Chapters 12-15 Analysis
This section of Clap When You Land is the narrative’s rising action. As both Yahaira and Camino investigate their world in the wake of the plane crash, their discoveries are slowly and steadily leading them closer to one another. For Camino, who is more closely tied into the novel’s themes of spirituality and magic, the tablet, on which she comes face-to-face with her sister for the first time, is a view to Papi’s hidden life. This is evidence from the sense of guilt Camino describes after her initial friend request to Yahaira: “I am nervous to admit to Tía what I’ve done. / That I’ve reached out / & told her my father’s secret: / I Exist” (251). The act of allowing herself to be seen by Yahaira and growing out of her father’s shadow is an important step for Camino’s growth as a character.
There is also a strong theme of duality at the heart of this interaction. As both sisters investigate each other, they are given an avenue to understand themselves. When they speak to one another over the internet, each sister is looking at features that resemble her own: “Camino is like a golden version of me” (277). The tablet becomes empowered, effectively an enchanted mirror. Later, Camino will use this duality to her own ends, attempting to steal Yahaira’s passport and privilege to travel.
Disguises, trading faces, and identity are a recurring theme in Clap When You Land. As Mami describes it, Papi’s reason for his initial affair with Camino’s mother was his own bifurcated self-image. While trying to gain the respect of Mami’s father, a high-standing general who wanted another suitor for his fair-skinned daughter, Papi felt he was forced to hide who he was to live up to Mami’s high status. This is an example of double consciousness; the internal conflict of otherness that many people of color experience while living in a subordinated hierarchy. Although it is clear Papi has managed to leave different parts of himself with either daughter, his searching for identity is an unfinished business that Camino and Yahaira must resolve in their own lives as they heal from the cycle of trauma they have inherited.
Yahaira reflects on the longstanding tension between her mother and father. As she does, her understanding of her parents becomes more nuanced: “I think of how the word unhappy houses / so many unanswered questions” (231). In many ways, when Yahaira finds out that she has a half-sister in Camino, it is the result of an investigation she has been leading since she found her father’s marriage certificate. This is a fundamental difference compared to Camino’s journey. While Camino’s questions are answered by Tía Solana as they come up, Yahaira is forced to play a more active role in untangling her father’s secret past. She spends many of the scenes she shares with Mami with a nagging sense that she is not always privy to the subtle subtexts of her mother’s anger: “I look from Mami to Tío Jorge / trying to understand what isn’t being said. / Did Mami know about the certificate” (189). When her questions are answered by Camino’s friend request, she comes to understand the full scope of what her mother endured during her marriage to Papi, shifting the way she sees the world her and bringing her closer to maturity.
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