Harbor Me

Fiction | Novel | Middle Grade | Published in 2018

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Summary

Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Chapters 1-6

Chapters 7-11

Chapters 12-17

Chapters 18-23

Chapters 24-30

Chapters 31-34

Chapters 35-40

Character Analysis

Themes

Symbols & Motifs

Important Quotes

Essay Topics

Symbols & Motifs

Hair

Hair symbolizes the complexities of Haley's identity and story, and it is referred to throughout Harbor Me. Her diverse racial identity is signified by the fact that her hair is both bright red and kinky. In a literal sense, Haley's complex identity is visible to the outside world, sparking the nickname “Red” that people like her uncle and Amari sometimes call her. Haley's hair does much more than physically suggest her identity, however. In some ways, her hair is responsible for a chain of touchstone events in the discovery and acceptance of her personal history. For instance, shortly after Haley and Holly became friends, Holly’s mom Kira approached Haley’s uncle offering to do Haley’s hair because her uncle struggles to handle it. Later, it turns out that Kira knew Haley’s mother before Haley was born, and that acquaintance helps Haley piece together a sense of what her mother was like.

Haley’s awareness of her hair also signals her acceptance of her identity and personal story as Harbor Me comes to a close. Near the end of the school year the ARTT group spends together, Amari draws each of his friends as superheroes. His superhero version of Haley prominently displays her hair as “a mass of curly red wires that seemed to be shooting electricity” (164). A superhero suggests a transformation of typical humanity. In a corresponding way, the superhero version of Haley signals how her identity has transformed over the year. As Haley reflects on the drawing, she notes, “Tragedy is strange. It takes away. And it gives too” (165). She accepts that her mother is gone, and her father has faced the challenge of imprisonment, but the union of the two of them is recorded in her unique, red, kinky hair, as a sign of who she is and where she comes from.

Music

Throughout Harbor Me, music is a motif that connects Haley to her family's past, present, and future. She frequently references her uncle's musical abilities and interests as he plays guitar, sings her bedtime songs, and shares with her his love of Joni Mitchell. Haley notes that she “liked falling asleep to the quiet hum of his guitar” (166). She also quotes from Joni Mitchell’s song “Little Green” as she and her uncle listen to it in the car, a song she mentions as “one of [her] favorites,” with Mitchell’s voice “sweet and high” (116). In the present action of the novel, her uncle’s music comforts Haley.

As Haley learns more about her past, she discovers just how important music was to her mother, father, and uncle before and just after she was born. Haley vaguely remembers that her mother would sing to her “a song about summertime,” possibly alluding to George Gershwin’s tune “Summertime” (85). The evocative music is especially powerful for Haley because it is one of the few solid connections that she has to her mother who died years ago.

Haley is also aware of her father’s love of music, and that he and her uncle would play together. Because her father is incarcerated, music also helps her establish a connection with him while he is away. At the end of Harbor Me, once Haley's father is released from prison and returns home, music signals their reunion on an emotional level. Haley asks her father to play the song "Summertime," the same one that she can recall her mother singing to her. Her father complies, stating that he “dreamed this moment a thousand times” (175). Haley asks her father to play the same song she remembers her mother singing, thus awakening a link to Haley's past. At the same time, there is a strong sense that the music signals a new future, a beginning of a new story in her life.

Poetry

Throughout Harbor Me, poetry is a motif connected to the ARTT group's feelings about resisting injustices and meeting challenges with strength and confidence. The primary references to poetry emerge when Esteban shares poems that his father wrote. However, there are also indications that Ms. Laverne encourages the students to develop an appreciation for poetry.

Esteban reveals his father's interests in poetry when he takes his turn telling his story into Haley's voice recorder during one ARTT session. Over the course of the year, he reads several poems to his classmates, and Haley records them. The poetry is tied to his father’s time in prison. The first poem Esteban reads describes the experience of being taken by immigration officials and finding a community of language and cultural experience among his fellow detainees. It ends with the potent reminder: “[W]hen you are with your people you are home” (101). Later, his father writes a poem that likens the resistance of the dispossessed and downtrodden to “an army of ants planning a revolution” (131). The other poems similarly explore themes of community, injustice, and nonviolent resistance. Each of the poems that Esteban reads affects Haley greatly. While she is focused on the idea of storytelling, and on the relationship between stories and personal identity, poetry functions as an important source of inspiration for Haley, encouraging her to find strength and to act.