Merci Suárez Changes Gears

“To think, only yesterday I was in chancletas, sipping lemonade and watching my twin cousins run through the sprinkler in the yard. Now, I’m here in Mr. Patchett’s class, sweating in my polyester school blazer and waiting for this torture to be over.”

The opening lines of the narrative juxtapose the liveliness of Merci’s family life with the seriousness of Mr. Patchett’s classroom at Seaward Pines. These lines outline the emotional and psychological territory of Merci’s home and school realms. Throughout the story, Merci balances these two worlds and finds her identity within each. Medina’s opening lines.

“I sneak out my camera and snap a shot of Hannah as the photographer positions her. With two clicks I stretch her neck and turn her into an adorable giraffe, complete with head knobs. Hannah wrote a report on giraffes last year when we were studying the African plains. They’re graceful and gentle—and a little knobby kneed—just like Hannah.”

These lines showcase some of Merci’s key character traits. She’s caring and sensitive, which is evidenced by her loving and observant understanding of Hannah’s spirit and character. She’s also quick-thinking and creative, as evidenced by the giraffe filter that she chooses for Hannah. This moment also foreshadows the true friendship and fondness that will grow between the two girls by the end of the narrative—although Edna and her coterie are the center of Merci’s social life at Seaward at this point in the narrative.

“‘You’re lucky to be here,’ [Edna] had said […] ‘You could be at a school that has a drug dog and smells like mold.’ She made a face and giggled. And it was true: I could have been, which is always what worried Mami and Papi, too, especially after what happened at the middle school that I was zoned for. A boy brought a knife because another kid liked his girlfriend. Luckily, somebody saw it in his locker and told before anybody got hurt, but the story made the evening news.”

In this quote, Edna shows off her classist, mean streak. Edna, the wealthy and privileged daughter of a podiatrist, sees public schools as places filled with “drug dogs” and “mold”: In other words, she sees them (and, by extension, those who go to them) as beneath her.