Merci Suárez Changes Gears

“I sneak out my camera and snap a shot of Hannah as the photographer positions her. With two clicks I stretch her neck and turn her into an adorable giraffe, complete with head knobs. Hannah wrote a report on giraffes last year when we were studying the African plains. They’re graceful and gentle—and a little knobby kneed—just like Hannah.”

These lines showcase some of Merci’s key character traits. She’s caring and sensitive, which is evidenced by her loving and observant understanding of Hannah’s spirit and character. She’s also quick-thinking and creative, as evidenced by the giraffe filter that she chooses for Hannah. This moment also foreshadows the true friendship and fondness that will grow between the two girls by the end of the narrative—although Edna and her coterie are the center of Merci’s social life at Seaward at this point in the narrative.

“‘You’re lucky to be here,’ [Edna] had said […] ‘You could be at a school that has a drug dog and smells like mold.’ She made a face and giggled. And it was true: I could have been, which is always what worried Mami and Papi, too, especially after what happened at the middle school that I was zoned for. A boy brought a knife because another kid liked his girlfriend. Luckily, somebody saw it in his locker and told before anybody got hurt, but the story made the evening news.”

In this quote, Edna shows off her classist, mean streak. Edna, the wealthy and privileged daughter of a podiatrist, sees public schools as places filled with “drug dogs” and “mold”: In other words, she sees them (and, by extension, those who go to them) as beneath her. Merci’s relationship to public schools is more nuanced, as her aversion to them is not based in snobbery but in a desire for safety. These contrasting attitudes highlight the class differences between the two girls. Edna is accustomed to belittling the lives of those less fortunate than her, while Merci and her family seek upward class mobility as a means of advancement, survival, and safety.

“Edna made a big deal of the fact that I have Michael as a buddy, but now she’s the one who can’t seem to take her eyeballs off him. Seriously, you’d think he was a hunk like, oh, say, Jake Rodrigo, the star of all the Iguanador movies. Now that’s dreamy. A long braid down his back. Dark skin. Muscles. And those green eyes with reptilian pupils.”

This passage subtly comments on race and beauty standards. Edna is attracted to the tall, prototypically Caucasian-featured Michael. However, Merci’s standards for an attractive male include “a long braid down his back” and “dark skin.” This reflects the racialized characteristics that each girl finds attractive. 

“I’m actually a little worried. Not about the map itself. Ms. Tannenbaum is big on projects, which should be fun. But the trouble is that she’s even bigger on building group skills. ‘The world is interconnected. Collaboration is the key skill of the future,’ she claims. Which means, you don’t usually work alone and in peace, the way I like.”

This passage showcases Ms. Tannenbaum’s character. She is fair, direct, and loving with her students, as she explains to them exactly why she is asking them to do the things that she wants them to do—in this case, her rationale for assigning a plethora of group projects. Ms. Tannenbaum strives to provide her students a nuanced and valuable experience in her classroom: She is focused on her social studies curriculum and helping her students develop the social and professional skill of collaboration. This love and dedication are apparent to the students, who celebrate Ms. Tannenbaum as the campus favorite.

“I saw that same pair of lovebirds kissing behind a tree in the parking lot where Mami sometimes waits for us if we’re staying after school. To me, it looked like they were sucking each other’s faces off, like in a sci-fi movie. There were sound effects and everything. I wasn’t sure either of them would survive. Honestly, it was scary.”

In this passage, Merci’s fearful attitude toward a display of sexuality is also mixed with an element of fascination. These complex feelings highlight Merci’s burgeoning exploration of sexuality and attraction—a key element of the novel’s coming-of-age arc. While Merci will not realize a romantic interest by the end of the narrative, her growing feelings about her own developing sexuality are a recurring motif throughout the novel. Medina therefore explores the development and exploration of sexuality as a crucial element of the growing-up process.

“Lolo wipes the crumbs from his lips. ‘A pain! That’s ridiculous,’ he says. ‘When it comes to people, sometimes it’s a matter of taste, like these cookies. We like some more than others. That’s not bad. It’s just human.’”

This quote highlights the intimacy of Lolo and Merci’s relationship, and the importance of Lolo’s role as Merci’s trusted and wise confidante. He effortlessly communicates an idea about human relationships using an illustrative simile that cuts to the heart of his point and provides a concrete example by which Merci can more easily understand his point. This passage therefore depicts Lolo as a compassionate and caring character, who does everything he can to both shepherd and comfort his granddaughter. It is this honesty, intimacy, and nurturing (that Merci does not receive from her other relationship with parental figures) that is the reason for her special closeness with her grandfather.

“Simon shares an apartment with housemates he met on a job. His parents and younger brothers are all in El Salvador, and he misses them. Maybe that’s why he always likes to say that if he had a little sister, it would be me.”

This passage highlights Merci’s home: an immigrant community. Her own family is from Cuba, and Simon is a single immigrant from El Salvador who lives with others to make ends meet and misses the family he left behind. In a historical time period during which the issue of immigration to America has become a major social and political flashpoint, Medina carefully highlights the struggle and beauty at the heart of the lived experience of the immigrant story in America. There is pain and loneliness, but there is also community and solidarity. 

“A dozen or so men have gathered. I recognize a lot of them because they work shifts for Papi when he can hire them. Sometimes he gives them work when he can’t afford it. ‘They needed the cash,’ he tells Mami when she’s paying the bills and worries that there’s not enough in the bank to cover them. He’ll say they have kids or rent due or something else. Papi always tries to help them with other problems, too, like where to sign up for an English class if they need it, or how to get a license so they can drive to their jobs. Stuff like that.”

This quote depicts Merci and Enrique’s arrival at a soccer match. Merci’s description of her father’s generosity to the men assembled for the match, which goes beyond that expected of an employer, further highlights the love and solidarity that characterizes Enrique’s relationship to the other immigrants within his community. Knowing intimately the struggles unique to new immigrants in America, Enrique goes out of his way to provide resources and guidance for his employees; he wants to increase their access to the English language and the knowledge needed to navigate America’s civic institutions. This is an act of solidarity, which Enrique executes as second nature. 

“‘You were nice to help [Manny] even though he’s your enemy,’ I tell Papi […] Papi takes a swig of water. ‘Anybody would do the same. Anyway, Cruz and I aren’t really enemies, Merci. We’re in business, each of us trying to get by. That’s all.’”

In this quote, Merci admires her father for helping someone she thought was his enemy. Enrique once again shows his wisdom, maturity, and understanding of the bigger picture. While he indulges a bit of good-natured rivalry between himself and Manny, he doesn’t inject this relationship with real malice because he sees Manny as someone similar to himself: an immigrant who is providing for his family. The solidarity that Enrique feels for Manny matters far more to Enrique than creating a business rivalry.

“Papi shakes his head. ‘This is a bad idea, Ana. What if trouble breaks out down there?’ His voice trails as he casts a long look at Roli. I’ve heard them talk to him before he takes the car. What to do if he’s stopped by police, where not to be, how your hands never go into your pockets. It seems crazy since Roli is clearly of the pocket protector variety, even if he does like to listen to his music loud.”

Ana and Enrique are discussing Merci’s request to go to City Place to watch an evening movie with her friends for the first time. Ana takes a protective attitude, not wanting 11-year-old Merci to roam the city streets without adult supervision, while Enrique is more liberal. He understands that Merci cannot stay under the protection of the home and adults forever—because she is growing up. This quote also highlights the contentious relationship of Merci’s immigrant community with the police. Enrique has coached Roli through any possible interactions with the police because he understands that Roli, as a Cuban-American, will be subject to racial profiling and a higher level of scrutiny from the police. Merci’s knowledge that Roli is a bookish nerd, rather than a marauding hoodlum, is immaterial to his interactions with the police, as Enrique believes that they will see and act according to Roli’s race first, rather than the fullness of his character and humanity.

“Michael looks around. ‘So, is this where everybody comes to the movies?’ he asks. ‘Sort of,’ I say. Meaning, I have no idea. Mami still rents movies for us at the supermarket since it’s cheap and our internet is slow.”

This quick interaction between Merci and Michael depicts one of the everyday fibs that Merci tells her classmates to compensate for her distinct class background. Merci is acutely aware of how her lifestyle differs from those of her peers, based purely upon the income bracket of her family. Things that other students take for granted, such as regular outings to the movies and speedy internet, are not a given in Merci’s more economically-pinched family life. Therefore, Merci feels inferior to her more affluent classmates and tells many fibs that paint her family as more privileged than they are.

“One of the ladies who work for Mr. and Mrs. Frackas had to help me [find the restroom]. Her name was Inés, just like Tía, but she was quiet and serious, which isn’t like Tía Inés at all. ‘This way, miss,’ she said in a thick accent, handing me a fresh towel and leading me down the long hall. I was in bare feet and dripping the whole way. I half expected her to scold me the way Tía Inés would have done. But no. This Inés leads me as if I were an important guest.”

In this excerpt, Merci describes a part of her experience attending a fancy party at a wealthy schoolmate’s home. At the Frackas estate, she encounters a member of the wait staff who coincidentally shares a name with her aunt. However, this Inés is formally courteous, as opposed to the open and authoritative Tía Inés. In a complex moment, Merci essentially finds herself outranking an adult with the same name as the aunt who she is accustomed to interacting with as a loving authority figure. As a guest of the child of the house, she is treated with the hierarchized formality that characterizes the relationship between servant and employer. While this is second nature to someone like the Frackas girl, it is something that Merci does not experience in her everyday life as the member of a working-class family. 

“Last time, Lolo forgot to clean the brushes, and Papi had to throw them out and get new ones. I’d hate to have to write Lolo up, but it could happen with the way he’s been forgetting things lately. Hopefully it won’t come to that.”

This passage serves as an example of both the foreshadowing and detail work that characterizes Medina’s depiction of Lolo’s Alzheimer’s journey. At several points before the climactic revelation of Lolo’s disease to Merci, Medina hints that Lolo’s mental health is declining. Merci notices these small details but does not understand the significance due to Lolo’s decision to hide his disease from her.

“It’s all so confusing. Mami loves Papi, that’s plain and boring. I love Jake Rodrigo—secretly, but still true. And I love Lolo and everybody else in our family, of course, and that’s not complicated either. But then there’s Roli and Ahana. Tía and Marco—and her crush on Simon, too. Michael and Edna in ‘maybe like,’ which is a mess. Is that love? Oh, gross, I don’t know.” 

In this quote, Merci puzzles through the intricacies of romantic love, which she still views as a mystery. This passage depicts the tween’s growing awareness of and fascination with sexuality and romance, paired with a fearful aversion to it. This mixture of conflicting feelings is a crucial part of Merci’s coming of age and depicts the complex process of arriving at an understanding of both human sexuality and one’s own sexuality. 

“I can’t help but think back to when Roli and I were little. Lolo and Abuela would bring us here in their car all the time. Lolo sang along to the radio as he drove. Abuela always packed our food in a million plastic containers. Back then, Lolo could swim out to where the water gets darker and the waves don’t break. He’d let me cling to his back.”

In this passage, Merci is struck by a memory of Lolo as she frantically combs the beach looking for him. As a result of his advancing Alzheimer’s, Lolo has gone missing during a Sol Painting project by the sea, and Merci unexpectedly remembers a former time she spent at this beach with Lolo, prior to the onset of his Alzheimer’s. During that time, Merci remembers Lolo as her stolid and strong guardian. Through the contrast between that memory and Merci’s present situation, Medina inserts pathos and poignancy to her depiction of the way that Alzheimer’s intimately affects the Suárez family. This passage also depicts the inexorable and sometimes painful passage of time: The fleeting nature of childhood and the reality of Lolo’s descent. 

“Rage suddenly bubbles up from my stomach. I suddenly hate the twins for being born, and Tía Inés for not using babysitters. I hate Lolo for wandering off the way he did. I hate Abuela for being too tired all the time and Roli for applying to college. I hate Mami. And Seaward Pines. And soccer. Everything. I hate everything, I think as I run inside the girls’ bathroom to hide.”

This excerpt depicts the aftermath of Ana finally telling Merci that she is not allowed to try out for the girls’ soccer team this year. It’s been a drawn-out conversation that Ana has avoided. Finally, on the day of the tryouts, Ana breaks the news to Merci as she is dropping her off at school. An outside perspective shows the injustice of Ana’s act, as Merci has been pestering her about signing the permission slip for days, and Ana has not had a direct conversation with Merci about it. The conversation that Ana did have with Merci about the topic was rushed and truncated by the traffic circle, which is not emotionally fair to Merci. Merci therefore reacts with anger. The reader, who is privy to Merci’s inner thoughts and greatest desires, can therefore empathize with Merci’s outsized anger in this moment. This depiction of the small injustices of life as a child is a prominent element of the narrative, as Medina depicts Merci’s tween struggle for independence and identity that coexists with her unassailable status as a child.

“I want no part of figuring out how to get undressed in front of girls who like to open the stall curtains on people for fun. That’s how everyone found out last week that Rachel wears a polka-dot bra. And that a girl named Susan doesn’t wear one at all, even though Edna told her—‘no offense’—that she should because she’s kind of big. Susan looked like she was going to cry, and I don’t blame her. I wouldn't want anyone to talk about my chest. God. I keep mine pressed close to my body with a sports top for now […] There’s nothing you can do about it anyway, and no way to stop people from noticing. Who can you complain to about people making fun of your boobs or underwear? Mr. Patchett?”

In this quote, Merci depicts her anxiety as a result of the rough-and-tumble atmosphere of the girls’ changing room, and about her developing body. It also highlights Edna’s abiding cruelty, as she openly humiliates her classmates. Through this passage, Medina highlights Merci’s growing understanding of the fact that she is not a child anymore. Not all her problems can be brought to a teacher for remedy, and she’ll have to struggle with puberty and her social life on her own. This is a key aspect of coming of age: the development of autonomy apart from the guidance and authority of adults.

“‘I know you and Roli are smart enough to be here—more than smart enough. But we don’t pay for tuition like most of the other families. So the value you add to the school has to come from you, because it’s not coming from our wallets.’ ‘That’s not fair,’ I say. ‘Maybe not. But I still think it’s worth it. Your education will open doors later, Merci, believe me. I just don’t want you to blow it.’”

In this excerpt, Enrique has a serious talk with Merci following her baseball mishap with Michael. Enrique reminds Merci of her scholarship status at Seaward Pines; he emphasizes that Merci’s position as a nonpaying student places extra burdens upon her. Unlike paying students, Merci does not have as much wiggle room to make childish mistakes because her position at the school is more precarious than theirs, which is unfair. This passage therefore functions as a comment on America’s class-stratified society; Merci must navigate this complex social, political, and economic reality as an 11-year-old child. 

“She’s powerless, I tell myself. What can she really do to me? After all, she’s got no head to think her own ideas, no hands to defend herself, and no legs to move where she wants. She’s just stuck there letting people twist her any way they want, letting them dress her the way they like, telling her what to do. Maybe we’re not that different.”

In this passage, Merci draws a metaphorical connection between herself and her grandmother’s dress form, which is named La Boba. Merci sees herself in this passive instrument that is subject to all manner of human whims. As a child who is coming into a greater knowledge of herself and of her place in the world, Merci feels the weight of the myriad expectations placed upon her by her family, as well as the constricting strictures that are placed upon her because she is still a child. Merci’s family is expecting her to juggle an array of challenging responsibilities, like an adult, without being granted the freedom and autonomy of an adult. 

“[Abuela] can barely hide how proud she is, but I can see that she may have overdone it today. She’s rubbing her hands the way she always does when her arthritis is bothering her. Sometimes Mami wraps Abuela’s hands in warm towels and pulls gently on her fingers to make them feel better. I make a note to do that for her later, after Michael goes home.” 

In this excerpt, Merci lovingly makes plans to massage the arthritis pain from her grandmother’s fingers, which she can see is flaring up due to Abuela’s hard work on Michael’s costume. Merci makes sensitive and compassionate observations of her grandmother’s frailty, and she plans to give her beloved grandmother some relief. This shows Merci’s gratefulness for Abuela’s expert skills, and the appreciation and respect that she feels for Abuela as a person. 

“I pull out my camera and take a picture of [Miss Miller] as she plays, although something about the sight makes my heart squeeze. She’s not my teacher anymore. Now I have lots of teachers—a whole collection of people who somehow know me less. Miss Miler always said she loved having us. Does she love these new kids as much as she loved us, i wonder? Nobody says gooey things like that to sixth-graders, not even Ms. Tannenbaum.”

When Merci sees her 5th-grade teacher on the school campus, she feels the difference between primary and middle grades. Merci reminisces about the sense of safety, security, and love that she felt when she was in Miss Miller’s class. She misses the intimacy of being fully known by one teacher who is her only teacher for the entire school day, instead of cursorily known by an array of teachers whose instruction is split into different timed periods. This serves as a vehicle for Medina to describe Merci’s growing pains. The difference between Merci’s primary years and middle-school ones is a microcosm for the overarching changes that are beginning to characterize her life as a tween. She can no longer rely on the support and guidance of an adult to give her a sense of security, and she must begin carving out a place for herself in the world independently.

“In the next few years, Lolo might not be able to remember us, Merci. He won’t even remember himself. My eye pulls to the edge, but I don’t even try to coax it back. There’s no cure for what Lolo has, no pill that can take this away forever. Even if Roli becomes the best scientist in the world one day, he won’t have time to fix Lolo the way he wants to. My thoughts race faster and faster, balling up into an angry fist. Who will go to the twins’ Grand’s Day? Or walk the twins? Or help Papi on the job? Who’ll crack bad jokes at El Caribe and dance with Abuela?” 

In this poignant passage, Merci reflects on the revelation that Lolo has Alzheimer’s. She struggles to digest Roli’s honest prognostication about Lolo’s ensuing decline, and also struggles with digesting the reality that Lolo will one day die. Merci cannot imagine her own life, nor the life of the family, without Lolo. This passage therefore highlights the anguish and lack of control that Alzheimer’s inaugurates into the life of the Suárez family. It also highlights Merci’s struggle to find her footing within this adult reality. 

“And then, because we notice that Lolo is puzzling over which way to open the folding chairs, Lena, Hannah, and I scramble to our feet to help him with the rest. I tuck my friends close to me at the table when we eat.”

In this excerpt, Lena and Hannah are at Merci’s house finishing their sarcophagus project. Merci, embarrassed by Lolo’s erratic outbursts, originally did not want the girls to come to her home. However, when she decides to tell Lena and Hannah about Lolo’s disease, the two girls meet Merci with respect and compassion—two qualities lacking in Merci’s social life when she was an ancillary member of Edna’s coterie. Merci can let her guard down and enjoy true friendship with Lena and Hannah.