Refugee

“Wearing that uniform turned boys into monsters. Josef had seen it happen.”

Josef is talking about the Hitler Youth movement. Gratz uses childhood vocabulary of “boys” and “monsters” to filter these political ideas through a child’s perspective and highlight Josef’s innocence in this context. This statement also draws a comparison with other kinds of uniforms in the text: those of the Brownshirts, Cuban policemen, and Hungarian border guards.

“He hated that man. Hated him because of everything he’d done to the Jews, but mostly because of what Hitler had done to his father.”

The purpose of each of the plotlines is to imbue three political contexts with individuality to provoke a subjective response. This passage exemplifies that purpose since Josef makes his political context personal by talking about his father.

“He thought they had escaped all this on the St. Louis. But the hatred had followed them even here, to the middle of the ocean.”

Because Josef is surrounded by Jews on the ocean liner, he develops the illusion of security. Ironically, his father’s paranoia about Nazis foreshadows what’s actually happening on the ship. The refugees don’t realize their peril until much later in the story.

“It was a different world below decks, Josef thought. A world outside the magic little bubble he and the other Jews lived in above decks on the MS St. Louis. Here, below decks, was the real world.”

This comment reinforces Josef’s growing awareness of how pernicious the prejudice against Jews can be. Hitler can reach out and attack them in the middle of the ocean through the reach of his ideology.

“He’s taking you away from who you are. What you are. How are you ever going to learn to count clave in Miami?”

Isabel’s grandfather equates identity with geography. He also believes that Isabel will lose some part of her soul by migrating to America. This establishes Isabel’s internal conflict as she goes through Coming of Age in a Humanitarian Crisis.

“Like trading her trumpet, had she swapped the one thing that was really hers—her music—for the chance to keep her family together?”

The two most important forces in Isabel’s life are her family and her music. She’s required to make a difficult choice when she swaps her trumpet for fuel in order to help her family. This action fuels her anxiety about losing a part of herself when she gets to America.

“The stewards smiled with the passengers as though they understood, but none of them could really understand, Josef thought. Not until their shop windows had been smashed and their businesses had been shut down.”

Josef is traveling on a ship with Jewish passengers and a non-Jewish crew. Although the captain and stewards are sympathetic to the plight of the Jews, Josef is saying that they can’t really understand. This foreshadows the character development of Isabel’s grandfather, who does not understand the refugees’ plight until he is also persecuted.

“But in the past six months, Josef and his father had traded places. Papa was the one acting like a child, and Josef was the adult.”

Josef is disturbed to realize that he’s now the man of the family. There is no one to whom he can turn for advice or protection. Rather, at the age of 13, he’s forced into a role that he is too young to play. This forms the foundation of the novel’s perspectives on coming of age in a humanitarian crisis.

“He wanted nothing more than to run to his mother’s arms, but she felt a million miles away from him. So did his father. They were three lonely islands, separated by an ocean of misery.”

Josef makes this comment after the Nazi crew smashes everything in the family’s cabin. He feels lost when he realizes neither of his parents can protect him anymore. The metaphor of the ocean attaches Josef’s feelings to the literal situation of the three protagonists, each of whom at one point feels lonely and lost in the ocean.

“Suddenly, Josef was the man of the family—the only adult in the family—whether he wanted to be or not.” 

Josef makes this comment as his father sinks further into his mental health crisis, his mother is in a drugged stupor, and his sister is absent. The parenthetical phrase “the only adult in the family” corrects his previous thought, reflecting his process of slowly coming to terms with his situation. This further highlights Josef’s difficult experience of coming of age in a humanitarian crisis, suggesting that such crises deprive children of proper care.

“They only see us when we do something they don’t want us to do, Mahmoud realized. The thought hit him like a lightning bolt.”

Mahmoud is observed praying on deck by some tourists. Their scrutiny terrifies him because he wants to remain invisible. However, he is making the assumption that visibility invites abuse. The simile of a “lightning bolt” connects his epiphany to violence.

“‘You can live life as a ghost, waiting for death to come, or you can dance,’ she told him. ‘Do you understand?’”

Josef’s mother implicitly says that she’s made the opposite choice from her husband. He cowers in terror while she dances, yet neither parent is dealing with life. Both have psychologically abandoned their children.

“Was he just keeping all his tears and screams pent up inside, or was he becoming so used to horrible things happening all around him that he didn’t notice anymore? Didn’t care?” 

Mahmoud worries about his younger brother, who appears distraught much of the time. The boy’s unresponsiveness is a silent rebuke to the adult world surrounding him.

“As frightening as the stampede was, Mahmoud was excited too—the refugees were finally doing something. They weren’t just disappearing into their tent cities. They were standing up and saying, ‘Here we are! Look at us! Help us!’”

Mahmoud is beginning to admire people who draw attention to themselves. For much of the story, he’s been happy to blend invisibly into the crowd of passive refugees. This comment marks a radical change in his attitude. The animalistic word “stampede” also amplifies the action of this passage in comparison to his previously passive states.

“How many Germans really understood what was happening in the concentration camps? Josef knew, because his papa had told him. Had shown him when he jumped overboard and tried to kill himself.”

These words echo Josef’s earlier comment about the lack of awareness among the ship’s crew. Once again, the boy is convinced that no one outside the Nazi party knows what’s really going on in Germany. This passage is part of Gratz’s technique of defining the horrors of the camps by the absence of description, thus presenting them as unspeakable.

“Theirs wasn’t a son cubano, with its triumphant finale; theirs was a fugue, a musical theme that was repeated again and again without resolution.”

Isabel frequently uses musical analogies for the events occurring in her life. This comment indicates the level of her despair at her hopeless situation. The little boat may remain adrift in the ocean forever, like a fugue that has no conclusion.

“This trip, this odyssey, was pulling his family apart, stripping them away like leaves from the trees in the fall. It was all he could do not to panic.”

Mahmoud makes this comment while floating in the sea with his mother, waiting to be rescued. His father, brother, and sister all seem to be lost. The journey that was supposed to offer them a secure future together may have been the means of separating them forever. The metaphor of fall signals that winter is coming and further hardship is ahead.

“Head down, hoodie up, eyes on the ground. Be unimportant. Blend in. Disappear. That was how you avoided the bullies.”

These words become Mahmoud’s mantra. He repeats them more than once over the course of the story. When he makes this comment, he has yet to learn that remaining invisible also cuts him off from vital assistance.

“Sent them back to die when we could so easily have taken them in! It was all politics, but they were people. Real people. I met them. I knew them by name.”

Isabel’s grandfather is recalling his interaction with the MS St. Louis passengers during his policeman days. He’s suggesting that it’s far easier to reject people when you don’t know them personally. The plight of the Jews becomes his own when he finds himself in the same dilemma seeking refuge in Miami.

“They needed a place to hide from Hitler. From the Nazis. Mañana, we told them. We’ll let you in mañana. But we never did.”

Isabel’s grandfather explicitly articulates the problem with “tomorrow”—it never comes. All three children have suffered from some variation of this illusory promise. However, Isabel’s grandfather rejects the notion that things will be better tomorrow. He is going to take action to make them better right now.

“It scared Mahmoud. Of the four members of his family who were left, he was the only one who wasn’t broken.”

Mahmoud is echoing Josef’s experience decades earlier. Both boys are surrounded by “broken” adults who can’t protect them. They each come to realize that they must assume adult roles in their families at a young age.

“And that was the real truth of it, wasn’t it? Whether you were visible or invisible, it was all about how other people reacted to you.”

When Mahmoud makes this comment, he has an epiphany that changes his future. In rejecting the notion that it’s always best to remain invisible, he realizes that the world is filled with both bullies and good people. His fear of bullies has prevented him from revealing himself to the good people who understand their Moral Duty to Help Others.

“Lito was wrong. She didn’t have to be in Havana to hear it. To feel it. She had brought Cuba with her to Miami.”

This comment represents Isabel’s epiphany about her identity. She no longer fears that leaving Cuba means she has left part of herself behind. Isabel’s music is her truest self, and it remains with her even in America.