53 pages • 1 hour read
Patricia BeattyLupita Manana
Fiction | Novel | YA | Published in 1981A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Themes
Persistent Optimism
The title of the book and the introduction readers are given to the main characters are immediate signals that a perpetually optimist outlook is going to be a major concern within the narrative. Even as readers are learning of the Torres’s difficult living conditions—which are about to become exponentially worse—Beatty is also revealing that Lupita is known for her forward-looking perspective: “[W]hen your father doesn’t catch as many fish as he wants, you always say, ‘Tomorrow, mañana, you will catch more, Papá’” (11). Because everyone acquainted with her in Ensenada calls her by her nickname, Lupita Mañana, she knows that she is distinguished by her optimistic attitude. In many cases, as with her brother and his friends, the nickname is used derisively. The general attitude in Ensenada, as readers can surmise from the poverty, unemployment, lack of a social safety network, and lack of education, is not one of optimism about tomorrow but rather cynicism: Life is hard and painful, and it is probably going to get worse. In a way, Beatty has decided to conduct a literary test of whether an attitude of persistent optimism can carry one through dire circumstances.
Beatty makes an important distinction in the novel. Most continually optimistic individuals are portrayed as having their “head in the clouds.” They imagine things will get better because they do not understand the gravity of the problems they face and the likelihood of things actually getting worse. In reality, such individuals dream of better days because they cannot endure knowing just how bad things are. Lupita is not a dreamer but a realist. Beatty allows the reader to listen in on her internal monologue, which is at once hopeful and fully aware of all the negative possibilities.
Lupita’s positivity prevails, even in the face of many challenges and setbacks. She succeeds not because more good than bad things happen to her but because she refines her expectations, eventually arriving at the conclusion that the greatest disappointments have come from depending upon others she revered, especially Salvador, so she herself is her truest, most reliable source of goodness.
Societal Expectations of Women and Men
There are distinct behavioral expectations for men and women in Mexican culture. These expectations are well-expressed by the interactions of men and women in the narrative. Given that the author was writing the novel during the early 1980s when women’s liberation and the equality of the sexes in American society was a particularly controversial topic, Beatty took the opportunity to depict the distinct expectations of the culture in which Salvador and Lupita grow up, which simultaneously casts light on gender disparities and expectations in American society without explicitly addressing it.
During the frequent conflicts and verbal disputes between Salvador and Lupita, there is more at play than the ordinary friction between an adolescent brother and sister. Culturally, Salvador would expect complete obedience from his sister. He would not feel he was doing anything untoward or unacceptably harsh by ordering his sister to remain alone for days at a time in the Tijuana park. Even resorting to physical abuse, such as cuffing Lupita when she resorted to begging or throwing her onto their aunt’s bed when she resisted his plans to move out, would not be perceived as extraordinary.
A subtheme is also present regarding male/female expectations in the form of the “absent male and the powerless female.” The underlying dynamic has to do with a society in which men are the authorities and breadwinners. On occasions when men are absent or are unable to provide, the women and their dependents are left in a particularly precarious position. There are at least three incidents of this in Lupita Mañana: first, the death of Lupita’s father leaving her mother with six children and no income; second, the relationship between Hermilio and his wife, Consuelo, who must depend upon la ayuda to feed her six children; and third, Salvador abandoning Lupita to live with the pocho Lucio. After Salvador totally ignores Lupita at the Valentine’s Day dance and she angrily declares that she no longer has a brother, she also passes judgment on the social expectations that have failed her and the most important women in her life.
Migrants Facing Poverty-Related Barriers
Though Lupita Mañana is a novel, the author very accurately depicts the unassailable obstacles faced by migrant workers who wish to enter the US. In the first pages of the book, Beatty describes the relative absence of economic opportunity in communities like Ensenada. She also makes it clear that the lack of governmental assistance and a low degree of public education exacerbate the situation. In the face of this, the thought of a nearby nation where even the least jobs pay handsomely, government assistance is available when necessary, and a good basic education is compulsory becomes extremely alluring.
As attractive as the possibility of coming to America for work may seem, however, Beatty makes it clear that there are a multitude of obstacles facing those who want to cross the border to work. The first of these is geographical. Even though Ensenada is relatively close to the California border, the Torres children end up walking more than 150 miles, not including a couple of harrowing uncertain rides in a truck and on a train when they had no idea where they were going. They suffered exposure to the elements, hunger, and thirst. Another issue they encountered was interference from people who had no vested interest in whether they crossed the border: robbers on the Mexican side and bandits on the American side. There was also a plethora of other human beings who created roadblocks for them to deal with: a coyote ready to take all their money and abandon them at the first sight of trouble, the Border Patrol who arrested them and returned them to Tijuana, pochos who helped the Torres children but only at a price, and la migra.
