Make Your Home Among Strangers

“Everyone else seems to just know stuff and I—I don’t. It’s like I’m the only one. I don’t even know how I got in sometimes, that’s how hard it is, how much I’m messing up.”

Lizet is speaking to Mami and Leidy at the kitchen table here, after returning from school for a surprise Thanksgiving trip. Lizet is struggling at Rawlings, both academically and with the idea that she belongs there. Her sense of inferiority is clear, as she wonders how she got in at all. 

“Awe-some, awe-some! What other stupid words you picking up at that school?”

Leidy is mocking Lizet as they talk in their shared bedroom in Mami’s apartment. Lizet has just sincerely said the word “awesome,” and Leidy makes fun of her, calling it a white girl word. The conversation is a nod to the beginning of Lizet’s assimilation into Rawlings culture. 

“I didn't want to say that what she thought of as the law was probably very much open for debate [...] more complicated than my mom wanted to admit.”

Mami is talking about the Ariel Hernandez case at dinner just before Lizet leaves to return to Rawlings. Lizet is skeptical of Mami’s insistence that Ariel will not be deported, wondering if Mami totally understands the laws that she claims to know by heart. Lizet is aware of her own sense of superiority in this knowledge, though she doesn’t realize that it makes Mami feel inferior.