How Tia Lola Came to (Visit) Stay

Miguel Guzmán is the novel’s protagonist and Alvarez’s third-person limited narration tells the story from his perspective. The 10-year-old Dominican is born in New York and grows up speaking English, but he experiences bullying because of his ethnicity when he moves from New York City to a small town in Vermont where “his black hair and brown skin stand out” (5). Miguel’s frustrated desire to blend in with his white peers and his initial struggle to make friends lead him to feel isolated. Because Miguel is dealing with painful emotions—confusion over his parents’ divorce, homesickness, and loneliness—he’s sometimes inconsiderate toward others. At the start of the book, he makes his mother and sister cry when he blurts out that perhaps Tía Lola “didn’t get married so she wouldn’t have to get divorced” (7). Miguel becomes more caring and courteous over the course of his character arc thanks to Tía Lola’s influence. In the final chapter, his Dominican relatives praise his manners: “Ángel’s mother is looking at Ángel as if to say, You should learn from your perfect cousin” (141). Gradually, Miguel’s efforts to make Tía Lola feel welcome increase his empathy toward other characters as well.

Alvarez depicts Miguel as a dynamic character who goes from being embarrassed by Tía Lola and struggling with loneliness to embracing her and gaining many friends. The changes Miguel undergoes develop the story’s major themes. For example, he grows more attached to his Dominican heritage as Tía Lola teaches him Spanish, underscoring The Role of Language in Shaping Identity. Additionally, he advances the themes of family and community support by helping his great-aunt to learn English, which allows him to find Tía Lola when she gets lost in New York: “I’ve been teaching her street signs in Vermont” (79). Miguel’s connection to Tía Lola is essential to his growth into a considerate and empathetic person. Alvarez emphasizes a turning point in Miguel’s character arc in Chapter 9 when he makes peace with his family’s situation: “Some things, like his parents’ divorce, he just has to learn to accept” (120). This shift reflects Miguel’s growing maturity since the beginning of the novel when he was in denial about his parents’ separation and took the ensuing frustration out on his relatives. Through Miguel, Alvarez offers young readers an example of living with and learning from significant life changes.

Linda Guzmán is Miguel’s mother and Tía Lola’s niece. Alvarez first introduces her as a melancholy figure, grieving her divorce and prone to bursting into tears and reminiscing about her ex-husband. The hardworking woman puts in long hours at her job as a counselor at a university: “Every night, she gets home so late from work, there is little time for unpacking and cooking” (4). In addition, her experience as a psychologist gives her insight into people’s thoughts and feelings. “Miguel’s mother gives him a look as if she can tell what is in his heart” (21). While Miguel sometimes finds Mami’s perceptiveness inconvenient, Alvarez indicates that this quality makes her an attentive and caring parent.

Through the Guzmáns’ divorce, Alvarez highlights a key trope of coming-of-age novels: learning to see one’s parents as human and fallible rather than invincible. Mami has primary custody of the children, so her presence in the novel is more prevalent than Papi’s. Mami’s choice to divorce her husband, leave New York, move to Vermont, and ask Tía Lola to come to the US and help her with the children provides the setup for the plot. Thanks to Tía Lola’s support, Mami regains her sense of joy, highlighting The Importance of Family and Community Support. Alvarez calls attention to Tía Lola’s influence on Mami’s mood by describing her reaction to the house’s purple facade: “She looks as if she is about to cry, something she has not done in a long time” (96). Mami loves the bold paint job because the color, like much of what Tía Lola brings to their life in New York, reminds her of her happy childhood in the Dominican Republic. Mami’s view of Tía Lola as a surrogate mother helps Miguel understand his place in this legacy of family and community support. Mami tells him: “‘Maybe Tía Lola was too busy being my mother to find a husband.’ This is a surprise to Miguel and Juanita. You can be a mother without really being the mother” (109). The loving, lifelong bond between Mami and Tía Lola ultimately helps Miguel accept his parents’ divorce.

Miguel and Juanita’s father, Daniel Guzmán, is a creative and caring man who decorates department store windows for a living, but his “real love is painting” (24). His artistic work inspires Miguel to write the message in the snow for Tía Lola in Chapter 2. Despite Miguel’s worries about the changes in their family structure, Papi shows Miguel that he cares through his efforts to attend the boy’s birthday party and baseball tryouts. Even when he cannot be physically present for his children, he offers them encouragement through frequent phone calls.

Papi consistently provides the inspiration that pushes Miguel toward a closer relationship with Tía Lola, greater self-acceptance and a full embrace of his culture and heritage. He immigrated from the Dominican Republic when he was seven years old, and his experiences as an immigrant undergird the novel’s exploration of family and identity. Papi advises his son not to be confined by racial stereotypes even if they may seem like compliments on the surface: “Dean agrees, ‘Yeah, you’re Dominican, I mean, baseball’s, like, natural for you.’ When Miguel tells his father what Dean has said, his father gets annoyed. ‘You’ll make the team because you’ve been practicing hard, that’s why’” (54). Papi’s words of encouragement help Miguel take pride in himself and his heritage. Although Papi is not the children’s primary caregiver, he works to make sure they feel his support and love through his care, attention, and the visits. Although divorce changes the Guzmáns’ life, Papi’s continued presence in his loved ones’ lives reinforces the importance of family support in Alvarez’s narrative.

Juanita Guzmán is Miguel’s younger sister and Tía Lola’s great-niece. Alvarez characterizes the second grader as an optimist who “always sees the bright side of things” (4). Miguel views her as “a know-it-all” (1), in part because she enjoys showing off her knowledge of Spanish. Although the siblings squabble frequently, Juanita often applies her cleverness to a common goal, such as when she concocts the cue card plan to help Tía Lola learn English: “We’ll draw some signs on some cards and flash them to Tía Lola when Mami is around” (71). This scheme demonstrates Juanita’s creative problem-solving skills, her growing willingness to cooperate with her brother, and her desire to see her father in New York City. Juanita and Miguel engage in the standard sibling bickering, but their growing bond over the course of the novel, underscores the central values of Alvarez’s story—love and family.

Like many of the novel’s characters, Juanita changes over the course of the story because of Tía Lola. The difficulty of her parents’ divorce challenges and quells her natural optimism, and she’s wary of the forbidding farmhouse when her family first arrives in Vermont. Tía Lola revives her sense of joy by nurturing her playfulness: “She puts on her castanets and clacks around the room, stomping her feet as if she is throwing a tantrum. Their mother and Juanita join in, acting goofy” (16). In addition to helping Juanita become more like her old, positive self, Tía Lola improves Juanita’s relationship with Miguel. For example, teaching their great-aunt English so they can visit their father in New York gives the squabbling siblings a shared goal. Alvarez uses Juanita’s growth to examine The Process of Adapting to New Environments. Between the move and her parents’ divorce, Juanita sometimes feels torn as to “where she really, really belongs” (122), but her great-aunt’s story in Chapter 9 reassures her that she’s meant to be “next to her brother and mother and aunt” rooting her identity in her family and the love they have for each other (128). Juanita’s characterization demonstrates Tía Lola’s positive influence and develops the themes of family and adaptation.

Rudy is the first person the Guzmáns befriend in Vermont. The narrator offers the following description of him in Chapter 3: “Rudy is tall and big-shouldered, with rumpled gray hair and thick eyebrows and red cheeks. He looks like someone who has lived in the Old West but has retired to modern times in Vermont” (31). Alvarez establishes the burly widower’s kind and welcoming nature when he gives Mami and the children “[t]hree meals for the price of one” at his restaurant (4). Rudy shares Tía Lola’s zest for life, as evidenced by his excitement to learn Dominican recipes, Spanish phrases and dancing from her. Near the end of the novel, Rudy again proves himself a supportive friend by allowing Tía Lola to prepare all the food for Mami’s surprise party at his restaurant. Rudy’s welcoming, cheerful, and helpful nature makes him a steadfast friend to the Guzmán family, evidencing The Importance of Family and Community Support in Alvarez’s narrative.

Throughout the novel, Rudy’s Restaurant is a gathering place for the townspeople. Rudy’s desire for community leads him to open his business: “When his wife died five years ago, he opened a restaurant. ‘I love eating, but I hate eating alone,’” he tells his diners, reinforcing the thematic connection Alvarez draws between the motif food and the importance of community (32). Rudy and Tía Lola both take care of people by cooking for them. In Chapter 8, Mami suggests that Rudy and Tía Lola may have romantic feelings for one another: “Tía Lola, bueno, she could do with some good company” (108). While this isn’t confirmed in the first book, their love story represents a sense of possibility for Tía Lola in the rest of the series.