In 1981, Patricia Beatty originally published the young adult novel Lupita Mañana about the difficulties faced by two teenage Mexican siblings who immigrate to Southern California to locate their aunt and find dependable jobs. The book has remained popular and in print throughout the years that have followed. The version summarized here is the 2000 Harper Trophy reprint. Though a perennial bestseller that has been exhaustively reviewed, commented upon, and nominated for the Jane Adams Book Award, Lupita Mañana remains controversial. Despite being widely read, it is likely the narrative and the intent of the author are often misunderstood. Beatty, who wrote more than 50 young adult books, was a feminist who expressed great concern for marginalized populations, such as Native Americans, Hispanic migrants, and young women. Her work, both as a whole and in this particular novel, reveals a deep understanding of American literary roots as well as a profound insight into the conditions of groups and individuals who populate her fiction. One common mistake readers make when researching Beatty is confusing her with the famous Canadian dancer of the same name. Beatty was born in Oregon and lived most of her adult life writing and teaching literature in California. While Beatty does not use foul language in English or Spanish, readers should be alerted to some word choices that, while accepted in the 1980s, have since been dropped from appropriate language usage. The narrative includes references to drinking, tobacco, marijuana, and contains cryptic descriptions of physical violence and death.

Plot Summary

Lupita Torres is a 13-year-old Mexican girl, who bears the nickname Lupita Mañana as a result of her relentless hopefulness that tomorrow—Mañana—might be a better day than today. Upon hearing that her father’s boss is going to their house to speak to their mother, Lupita finds her 15-year-old brother Salvador, and they rush home. When they arrive, they find their mother grieving because their father has been washed off the fishing boat where he worked and has been lost at sea. Lupita, who is very close to her father, recognizes his death will throw the delicate financial balance of the family into disarray.

Their mother, Carmela, sends Salvador to the fishing boat to find out if Captain Ortega will hire him in his father’s place. Ortega refuses, calling Salvador a slacker and telling him to stay away from Dorotea, Ortega’s daughter.

With no possibility of meaningful work available in their native Ensenada, Salvador and Lupita are told by their mother that they must go to live with their well-to-do Aunt Consuelo in Indio, California. Carmela borrows 800 pesos for one year against the family home to help the teenagers on their trip. Carmela makes Lupita create a secret money pouch in her clothing and tells her to dress like a boy. The next morning before dawn, the two set out on the 75-mile walk from Ensenada to the border city of Tijuana.

Accosted by two Mexican youth in a car, Salvador is beaten and Lupita is thrown down. However, the thieves do not find their money pouch or take their food and their few keepsakes. They complete the walk in two days and find themselves overwhelmed by the size and busyness of Tijuana. When they go to the US border the next day and see the crowds and fortifications, they realize there will be no easy way to cross.

Walking through the streets of Tijuana, they stop in front of a Western wear store and strike up a conversation with the owner, whose brother, Tomás, turns out to be a coyote—a person who smuggles migrants across the border. When they cannot pay the vast fee he charges, Salvador and Lupita stake out his store and sneak into the back of his truck, secretly riding with him when he goes into the hills to meet a group of people he will lead across the border. As the teenagers follow Tomás and the other migrants, the entire group is simultaneously discovered by a Border Patrol helicopter and attacked by a small group of gringo bandits. In the struggle, an elderly migrant is killed. Lupita rescues Salvador by smashing their water bottle over a gringo’s head, and Salvador rescues a young woman who has been seized by the attackers. The Border Patrol chases away the gringos and takes the migrants back to Tijuana.

More than a week lapses with Salvador and Lupita slowly running out of money for food while they search for another way to cross the border. Walking through the city market one day, Salvador is hailed by Bartolo, a former classmate. That night, they return to the market where Bartolo takes their last precious possessions—Salvador’s knife and Lupita’s silver cross—and helps them crawl into produce crates loaded in the back of a truck headed across the border.

When the truck stops at a gas station in the US, the travelers climb out of their crates and flee to a series of railroad tracks. While waiting for a northbound train, they meet the family of Señor Rosario, who are also unauthorized immigrants. He explains how the trains can be used by migrants. The Rosarios climb into a boxcar while the teenagers get into an empty grain hopper. Railroad police arrest the migrants in the boxcar but do not check the hopper. The travelers ride to a small train yard. They climb out and wait through the day in an abandoned boxcar.

When they hear a man singing in Spanish, they hail him. He is Señor Hector Esposito, a railroad employee and a pocho, an American citizen of Hispanic descent. Instead of turning them over to la migra, the US immigration authorities, Hector takes them to Colton, California, where his brother owns a café, and his cousin owns a hotel. Salvador gets a job as a café dishwasher and Lupita goes to work as a chambermaid. They obtain false documents saying they are American citizens, though they know they could be arrested by la migra at any time because they speak no English. Little more than a week after they arrive, la migra raids the café. Alerted by a pocha waitress, Lupita and Salvador manage to hide among trash cans. Knowing la migra may return soon, the teenagers realize they must head to their aunt’s home in Indio, about 80 miles away.

Because la migra patrols the roads in the area, the travelers decide to walk at night and sleep during the day. Understanding the highway system, they know which routes to follow. At one point, as they skirt the Mojave Desert, they are followed and terrorized by two gringo young men in a pickup, who shoot at them as they hide behind a stone abutment, then drive away when they get bored.

After three nights, they come to Indio, and with the help of a pocha, they find the road on which Aunt Consuelo lives. To their surprise, her house is a small cinder block dwelling in a rundown neighborhood. Consuelo is overweight, gray, and defeated by life. She has six children and a husband with physical disabilities, Hermilio Ruiz, who spends his nights drinking. Consuelo admits she had written Carmela advising against the trip when she received notice the teenagers were coming. After some discussion, it is determined that the teenagers will live with the Ruiz family and pay $140 a month. For $2.00 an hour, they will work alongside Consuelo, who goes to the fields and harvests produce each day.

Before dawn, they load up in the back of a pickup belonging to Fidencio, Hermilio’s brother, and drive to fields where they initially pick summer squash. Lupita finds the work backbreaking, exhausting, and painful. From the outset, Salvador has bitter feelings, believing the work is beneath him.

The following Sunday, Lupita writes her mother, telling her they are safely in Indio and will be sending her money. She wanted to go to mass with others in the Ruiz family but could not since she did not have a dress. That day, Fidencio’s grandson, Lucio, comes to the Ruiz home with his guitar. He is a teenage pocho, who is becoming completely Americanized. He calls himself “Lucky.” Salvador quickly falls under his sway, initiating a schism between himself and Lupita. Lucio disrespects and insults Lupita, but Salvador admires him and moves in with Lucio and his friends, taking on a job as a dishwasher.

Over the months that follow, Salvador demonstrates declining interest in helping Lupita support his mother in Mexico and greater self-centeredness. At the same time, Lupita grows closer to her aunt and her eight-year-old cousin Irela. Consuelo chastises Salvador for his selfishness and compels him to take Lupita to the upcoming Valentine's Day dance. Her older cousins teach Lupita the steps to the gringo dances and, though she is initially resistant, she finally agrees to attend.

The evening of the dance, Consuelo helps prepare Lupita, who—looking in the mirror—is surprised at how attractive she is. Lucio and Salvador pick her up late, having already taken their girlfriends to the dance. The boys have contracted with their friend Rafael to dance with Lupita. After two dances, he escorts her to an empty row of wooden seats and abandons her for the evening. As she watches her brother and his friends and recognizes she is totally being ignored, she walks to the ladies’ room to cry. There she decides she will never depend on Salvador again and that he is no longer her cherished brother.

The instant she walks out of the restroom, la migra raids the dance. Lupita goes back into the bathroom and crawls out the open window into a row of oleander bushes. After la migra leaves, from her hiding place Lupita hears Lucio and Rafael discussing that Salvador was arrested. They insult Lupita, wondering out loud where she might be. She reveals herself, angrily calling them to task for their insults and demanding they take her to Consuelo’s.

Lupita explains what happened to her aunt, who consoles her and makes clear she wants Lupita to remain with her. Lupita asks if one of her cousins will teach her English. Consuelo reluctantly assents. That evening, little Irela climbs in bed with Lupita and begins to teach her English with the help of a picture book.