'Hola and Goodbye': Stories of immigrants and assimilation
With Hola and Goodbye, Donna Miscolta traces, through a series of stories, the arc of one family's assimilation into the United States.
Hola and Goodbye
Una Familia in Stories
By Donna Miscolta
Carolina Wren.
285 pp. $17.95
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Reviewed by
Kathe Connair
nolead ends With Hola and Goodbye, Donna Miscolta traces, through a series of stories, the arc of one family's assimilation into the United States.
The book opens with Lupita, an immigrant from Mexico who works in a fish cannery in San Diego's Kimball Park. She feels betrayed when her best friend (and the only other Spanish-speaking coworker), Rosa, tries to improve her lot by speaking English. When Rosa is treated cruelly by their lecherous boss, Lupita is quick to forgive and comfort.
In subsequent stories, we learn about Lupita's children, who grow up watching The Lone Ranger and fully embrace the American way of life. Consuela becomes Connie, a faithful reader of Better Homes and Gardens who buys anything "with the word better in it." Milagros, now Millie, thirsts for the avocado-hued appliances in the pages of Ladies' Home Journal. Alicia Carmen takes a new name altogether, Lyla, and transfers her dreams of stardom to her daughters.
Each story here is complete, but a couple are told in first-person, and I felt at sea until I could place the characters in Lupita's world. One connection eluded me completely, although the chapter held another touching tale of returning to and rising above one's roots - about a transwoman attending her 25-year high school reunion. And though there are fathers, sons, and brothers, we're told they're "treated like royalty" or "fussed over," but only a couple of them are fleshed out.
These are quibbles, though. Miscolta is an effortless storyteller who lovingly depicts the comforts and constraints, jealousies and judgments, protection and pride that all families experience. Doing so from the vantage of an immigrant family allows her to point out the limitations of a monolithic culture and make a case for accepting, inviting, and celebrating our roots, wherever they may be.
This review originally appeared in the
Minneapolis Star Tribune.