Under The Mesquite

In the final part of Under the Mesquite, Lupita must learn to grapple with life without her mother. The rosebushes die, a touching homage to the power of Mami’s love and care. The rosebushes are not a metaphor for Mami’s deceased life, but rather for the children she has left behind. Now, her kids must learn to tackle life without her and find joy without her witness. McCall continues to parallel Lupita’s journey with the mesquite, as Lupita finds solace within her affinity to the mesquite. Although Mami’s rosebushes couldn’t withstand her loss, the mesquite does, which symbolically foreshadows Lupita’s future success, despite the loss of her mother. The mesquite is her sanctuary because it resembles the tough, beautiful, resilient journey she subconsciously knows she is undergoing. The emphasis on Mami’s garden as Lupita’s safe space replaces Lupita’s past reliance on the church. Now, instead of religion guiding Lupita’s way, Lupita guides herself.

Though Lupita can find peace with the mesquite, her journey towards happiness without Mami is still a work in progress. The death of Mami is an unwelcome change, but afterwards, more positive change begins to develop around her. Her sisters go to prom, her father goes back to work, and her friends plan for their futures in college. Lupita feels stuck to her mesquite, lost in her feelings about her mother and completely taken by her desire to stay in in the family garden. This is a literal desire to stay with her family, but it’s also a metaphor representing her fear of more change. If Lupita leaves, what will happen to her family? She has spent more or less the entire book taking care of her family, and with her mother gone, she no longer needs to. It’s as though Lupita is so tired of the myriad changes that she has undergone in high school that she wants no change at all—even positive change.

When Lupita travels to Mexico, she finds that she can think more clearly without the proximity to her mother’s garden and her siblings. This is ironic, given how much Lupita associated Mexico with Mami. Lupita makes the experience of visiting her father’s mother her own, and she stays longer than expected. Without high stakes responsibilities, Lupita is able to breathe and reflect. Poetically, it is in her home country of Mexico, the place she felt most identified to for most of her life, where Lupita’s character development undergoes a major change. Lupita realizes that she needs to let go of the suffocating sorrow surrounding her mother’s death. She discovers that she must start from the beginning, just as her grandmother suggested she do with the laundry. In this moment, McCall communicates the message that when things become unmanageable, instead of trying to reign them in, we can instead start from the very beginning.

In the final moments of the book, Lupita goes against her father’s explicit wishes and applies for college away from home. Something in Lupita knows that this is the right decision and that going behind her father’s back will not hurt their relationship. This is because Lupita has learned a valuable lesson by the end of the novel: Even though your family may not be with you, it doesn’t mean their love isn’t with you. Mami is gone, but her love for Lupita is not, and Lupita can carry it with her wherever she goes. As Lupita goes off to college, she recalls her feelings of being uprooted and without language when she first moved to the United States. This immigrant experience helped Lupita prepare for all of the challenges ahead of her, even though she did not know it then. Just as that change proved to be fruitful and interesting, Lupita decides to embrace the change ahead.