118 pages • 3 hours read
Matt de la PeñaWe Were Here
Fiction | Novel | YA | Published in 2009A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more. For select classroom titles, we also provide Teaching Guides with discussion and quiz questions to prompt student engagement.
Symbols & Motifs
Jaden’s Keys
After agreeing to accompany Mong and Rondell in the group home escape, Miguel decides to provide the trio with spending money. He does so by stealing $750 in cash from the office of Jaden, the group-home counselor.
Remote and emotionally withdrawn throughout his group-home stay prior to the escape, Miguel uncharacteristically challenges Jaden to a game of foosball on the evening prior to absconding. Jaden is gratified by the invitation; he appears to believe that he has finally made headway in helping Miguel to relate to others. The narrator’s incentive in doing so is to have the opportunity to steal the keys to the file cabinet where he had seen Jaden store the cash while the pair were having a counselling session in the office. Keen and analytical, he realizes that Jaden never removes the keys from his belt unless he is playing foosball with the residents; therefore, he decides to challenge the young man to a game and surreptitiously removes the keys while the counselor is distracted. Although Miguel is pragmatic enough to feel justified in stealing the cash, he feels that Jaden tries “way too hard” (70) and feels sorry for him.
Later in the narrative, Miguel makes regular phone calls to Jaden while travelling through California. Despite his early feelings about the young man, Miguel experiences guilt about the theft and works very hard in order to repay the stolen funds to the Lighthouse.
The Catcher in the Rye
Miguel is a dedicated reader. Prior to leaving the Lighthouse, he packs several books to be carried in Rondell’s duffel bag, in order to be sure that he has sufficient reading material on the journey.
He is particularly intrigued by Holden Caulfield, the protagonist of J.D. Salinger’s novel, The Catcher in the Rye. Miguel is immediately drawn to the narration of the adolescent male narrator because Caulfield “seemed so honest about everything that was going through his head” (143). He is also impressed by the young man’s affection for his sister; it is easy to draw the comparison to Holden’s affection for his sister, Phoebe, and Miguel’s sometimes conflicted love for his brother, Diego. Miguel wonders if Holden feels responsible for the welfare of all the children he sees, as Miguel does for Rondell’s well-being. Like the protagonist of the novel, Miguel misinterprets the title of The Catcher in the Rye as referring to an individual responsible for the well-being of children; however, the title actually is that of a Robert Burns poem and is widely considered to allude to casual sexual encounters.
Finally, Miguel realizes that the entire novel is composed of Holden’s musings to his therapist. This is significant in view of Miguel’s refusal to participate in any counselling sessions, and may point to his future intention to do so.
The Brown Tooth Necklace
In addition to Mong’s apparently psychotic temper and tendency toward extreme violence, early depictions of his character include a description of a brown tooth that he wears on a string around his neck. Miguel always attributes some specific sort of import to the tooth; however, on the evening of their long talk on the beach, he finds that this is not the case. Mong has no idea to whom the tooth belonged; in fact, he found it on the street.
Mong feels that the tooth constitutes a “good luck charm” (185). Miguel is puzzled by this perception: Mong’s parents are dead, his own father attempted to murder him, and he is dying of kidney failure. Nonetheless, the young Asian man persists in regarding the charm as being lucky. He explains that the charm has helped him to find meaning in life, and to understand that “[i]t’s not what happens to people. It’s how they figure out what it means” (185).
On the morning following Mong’s death, Miguel awakens wearing the charm. He realizes that Mong must have placed it around Miguel’s neck during the night. The talisman figures significantly into Miguel’s thinking as he becomes more reconciled to events in his life and he fingers it while he is walking back to the Lighthouse. Literally brought to his knees in the street by the epiphany that Diego was never going to come back, but that he, Miguel, might still make meaningful contributions to the world, the brown tooth helps Miguel to comprehend his current reality.
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By Matt de la Peña
