Hola and Goodbye

In 1920s Southern California, Lupita Camacho leaves Mexico and settles not far from the borderand so begins the journey of an American family told by a chain of tales stretching across three generations. Early stories track Lupitas concessions to the demands of her new country and her new fish cannery job overseen by a lecherous boss who makes sure Lupita, her friend Rosa, and their Chinese coworkers work long, hard, and, for the most part, in silence, since speaking any language but English is forbidden. The familys first-generation Americans populate later stories as they work toward assimilation, complete with kidney-shaped inground pools, even though their homes and children never quite match those in the pages of Ladies Home Journal. Finally, distanced from the culture of their ancestors and freed from the stigma of accented English, Lupitas grandchildren live lives that are as wide-open as America: hosting karaoke nights, becoming female wrestlers, arriving at high school reunions utterly transformed. However, these modern-day family members discover that despite their freedom, they somehow remain set apart. In a time when the word immigrant has become politically charged and sometimes stripped of its earlier sense of dignity, these exquisitely human stories provide welcome restoration. In Hola and Goodbye, Donna Miscoltas altogether fascinating and flawed characters face progress and failure against the backdrop of each new generationbound together, and to us all, by the search for a place in this world.