Ever since the Nazis had taken over six years ago, Jews were fleeing Germany. By now, May of 1939, most countries had stopped admitting Jewish refugees, or had lots of official applications you had to fill out and file and pay for before they would let you in. Josef and his family hoped to one day make it to America, but you couldn’t just sail into New York Harbor. The United States only let in a certain number of Jews every year, so Josef’s family planned to live in Cuba while they waited.
In this passage, Gratz's narrator comments on the quickly developing crisis facing German Jewish families like Josef's in 1939. After living through six years of Hitler steadily eroding civil rights for Jews through anti-Semitic policies and the spread of propaganda, the Landaus are forced to flee their home country under the threat of being taken to a concentration camp. However, the international community did not always welcome Jewish refugees, setting limits for new arrivals or barring entry entirely. Because of the Roosevelt government's quota, the Landaus take their chances waiting in Cuba for a chance to enter the United States.
Mahmoud’s mother fell to her knees on the rocky ground and wept, and Mahmoud’s father held her close and let her cry.
Mahmoud felt gutted. It was all his fault. Hana might still be with them if he hadn’t gotten someone on that boat to take her. Or she might have died during their two hours in the water.
Either way, they had lost her.
“Mahmoud,” his father said quietly over his sobbing mother, “check the other bodies and see if they have any shoes that will fit us.”
When their smuggler's overloaded rubber dinghy tears on exposed rocks and capsizes, Mahmoud's family is left stranded in the Mediterranean. Their fake life jackets being no help, the family treads water until another refugee boat comes by. Refused entry by the people on the boat, Mahmoud and his mother pass baby Hana to a woman on board. In this passage, Mahmoud lives with the consequences of his impulsive decision, even though he made it out of an instinct to save Hana's life. But despite the circumstances, Mahmoud's father perseveres in survival mode, suggesting to his devastated son that they should check the drowned bodies for shoes they can wear, having kicked off their own to keep from sinking.
Papi had already tried to flee Cuba twice. The first time, he and three other men had built a raft and tried to paddle their way to Florida, but a tropical storm turned them back. The second time, his boat had a motor, but he’d been caught by the Cuban navy and had ended up in jail. Now it was even harder to escape. For decades, the United States had rescued any Cuban refugees they found at sea and taken them to Florida. But the food shortages had driven more and more Cubans to el norte. Too many. The Americans had a new policy everyone called “Wet Foot, Dry Foot.” If Cuban refugees were caught at sea with “wet feet,” they were sent to the US naval base at Guantanamo Bay, at the southern end of Cuba. From there, they could choose to return to Cuba—and Castro—or languish in a refugee camp while the United States decided what to do with them. But if they managed to survive the trip across the Straits of Florida and evade the US Coast Guard and actually set foot on United States soil—be caught with “dry feet”—they were granted special refugee status and allowed to remain and become US citizens.
In this passage, the narrator provides the historical context for Isabel and her family's journey from Cuba to Florida. Because their country's economy has been ruined by the collapse of the Soviet Union and by the US trade embargo, thousands of Cubans have tried to make the dangerous crossing to Florida. However, the US policy in 1994 is to naturalize only those Cubans who have made it to shore. With this historical context established, Gratz sets high stakes for the Fernandez family, who must evade capture by the Coast Guard if they hope to have a chance at a better life in the US.
"It was a mistake, leaving on this sinking coffin. I should have stayed put. All of us should have. How is Cuba worse now than it ever was? We’ve always been beholden to somebody else. First it was Spain, then it was the US, then it was Russia. First Batista, then Castro. We should have waited. Things change. They always change."
In this passage, Isabel's grandfather laments having joined his family and the Castillos in a homemade watercraft that has been beset by issues from the moment it launched. Weighing the options, Lito sees it as preferable to have stayed in Cuba, where starvation and political oppression are rampant, but where they at least would have had their lives. Lito refers to the quickly changing political situation in Cuba, which has seen it be a Spanish colony, an ally of the United States, and then an ally of the Soviet Union after Fidel Castro's communist revolution. Lito suggests that if they had stayed and waited it out, the desperate political situation would inevitably change, as it always has. In this way, he implies that the refugees on the craft were simply too impatient and should have been willing to suffer longer.
Isabel listened as everyone listed more and more things they were looking forward to in the States. Clothes, food, sports, movies, travel, school, opportunity. It all sounded so wonderful, but when it came down to it, all Isabel really wanted was a place where she and her family could be together, and happy.
To keep their spirits up while making the slow, perilous crossing, the Cuban refugees discuss everything they look forward to doing or having once they've made it to the US. In this passage, the narrator comments on how Isabel's desires go beyond material concerns. What Isabel truly craves is the peace and stability that can come from living in a country where food isn't rationed and people can attain steady employment. Isabel believes that a new life in the US means alleviation of the acrimony and desperation born of widespread poverty.
"The US has no soul. In Havana, you would have learned it without even trying. Clave is the hidden heartbeat of the people, beneath whatever song Batista or Castro is playing."
In another passage, Lito continues to speak pessimistically about Isabel's ambition to start a new life in the US, which he describes as having "no soul." By this, Lito means he doesn't believe American culture possesses the ineffable spiritual qualities of Cuba's Afro-Latino culture. To illustrate his point, he claims Isabel won't be able to learn how to count the clave rhythmic pattern in the US. He speaks of clave as being such a constant and fundamental component of Cuban culture that Isabel would simply have understood it. Speaking metaphorically, Lito insists that no matter who is in charge of their country, Cuban culture is irrepressible.
A calm came over Lito, as though he’d come to some sort of understanding, some decision. “I see it now, Chabela. All of it. The past, the present, the future. All my life, I kept waiting for things to get better. For the bright promise of mañana. But a funny thing happened while I was waiting for the world to change, Chabela: It didn’t. Because I didn’t change it. I’m not going to make the same mistake twice. Take care of your mother and baby brother for me.”
“Lito, what are you—?”
“Don’t stop rowing for shore!” Isabel’s grandfather yelled to everyone else. He kissed Isabel on the cheek, surprising her, and then stood and jumped into the ocean.
Although Lito spends much of the hazardous boat journey lamenting his decision to join and dismissing the others' hopes of a better life in the US, in this passage he reconsiders. Throughout the journey, Lito—who is also Officer Padron of Josef's storyline—recalls how he had to turn away the Jewish refugees on the MS St. Louis. The remorse he feels for having returned so many people to likely death in concentration camps prompts Lito to rethink his earlier statement about waiting for change to come. In this scene, Lito realizes his passive approach to change was wrong. In a self-sacrificial gesture, he leaps out of the boat to divert the US Coast Guard and give his family a chance at reaching the shore.
But making something happen meant drawing attention. Being visible. And being invisible was so much easier. It was useful too, like in Aleppo, or Serbia, or here in Hungary. But sometimes it was just as useful to be visible, like in Turkey and Greece. The reverse was true too, though: Being invisible had hurt them as much as being visible had.
Mahmoud frowned. And that was the real truth of it, wasn’t it? Whether you were visible or invisible, it was all about how other people reacted to you. Good and bad things happened either way. If you were invisible, the bad people couldn’t hurt you, that was true. But the good people couldn’t help you, either. If you stayed invisible here, did everything you were supposed to and never made waves, you would disappear from the eyes and minds of all the good people out there who could help you get your life back.
It was better to be visible. To stand up. To stand out.
While being held in a detention center–like Hungarian refugee camp, soon after his father is beaten by racist guards, Mahmoud considers whether it is preferable to attract or skirt attention. He realizes in this passage that bad outcomes can result either way, as can positive outcomes. For instance, being "invisible" in Syria helped him avoid attracting the attention of thieves and bullies. In Turkey, making his desperation plain to passing cars attracted the attention of a Palestinian former refugee who wanted to give Mahmoud's family shelter for the night. After thinking it over, however, Mahmoud concludes he has gotten better results by being bold and vulnerable—showing people that he and other refugees need sympathy and help. This conclusion is significant because it prompts Mahmoud to leave the Hungarian camp and lead a procession of refugees all the way to Austria.
Soon, Isabel had everyone in the room clapping along to the beat with her, but as she played she heard a different rhythm, a beat underneath the one everyone else was clapping to. Her foot tapped in time with the hidden cadence, and she realized with a thrill that she was finally hearing it.
She was finally counting clave.
Lito was wrong. She didn’t have to be in Havana to hear it. To feel it. She had brought Cuba with her to Miami.
At the end of Isabel's storyline, she and her family have settled in Miami, Florida; Isabel is going to school and her father has found a job. Isabel gets a new trumpet and learns to play the American anthem "The Star-Spangled Banner." However, she symbolically infuses her culture into the song, playing it with a salsa feel. Contrary to what her grandfather predicted, Isabel discovers she has found the clave rhythm despite moving to the US. Like so many other Cuban migrants, Isabel brings her cultural heritage with her to the States and, in her modest way, contributes to the expansion of American culture.
Mahmoud dragged a sleeve across his wet eyes, and Frau Rosenberg tried to hang the picture back on the wall. Her old hands were too shaky, though, and Mahmoud took it from her and hung it back on its nail for her. His gaze lingered on the picture. He was filled with sadness for the boy his age. The boy who had died so Ruthie could live. But Mahmoud was also filled with gratitude. Josef had died so Ruthie could live, and one day welcome Mahmoud and his family into her house.
The old woman gave Mahmoud’s arm a squeeze, and she led him into the living room. Mom and Dad were there, and Waleed and Herr Rosenberg, and the space was bright and alive and filled with books and pictures of family and the smell of good food.
It felt like a home.
The last paragraphs of Refugee depict Mahmoud looking at an old photograph of Josef Landau, the protagonist of the novel's first storyline. In an instance of situational irony, it turns out that the elderly German-Jewish woman who hosts the Bisharas is Ruthie, Josef's little sister. In this passage, Mahmoud feels a debt of gratitude to Josef's selfless decision to go to a concentration camp so that Ruthie could be free. The passage is significant because it shows how Josef's act of self-sacrifice has had a ripple effect through time, leading to a situation one day where Ruthie is able to welcome Syrian refugees into her home.
