What is it like in Welch?

Racial difference becomes more pronounced when the Walls move to Welch. There, the expectation is that the races will remain separate. Though segregation is no longer legal, public facilities, like the swimming pool, maintain defacto separation. The African Americans arrive during the morning when there is no entrance fee while white people swim during the afternoon when the fee is charged. Jeannette develops a friendship with Dinitia, a black girl, which causes trouble with her Grandmother Erma and her Uncle Stanley. Jeannette defends her position that the races are not different from each other which greatly upsets her grandmother.

The move from the west to the east coast is accompanied by more than a change in racial dynamics. The Walls have to adjust to a number of things characteristic of their new environment, including the harsh winter months. The loss of the nature and warmth of the west coast, impacts the general happiness of the Walls family. Rex is defeated by having to return to the place he spent his entire childhood trying to escape, and the Walls children are ready to leave almost as soon as they arrive. Welch symbolizes the end of adventure for the Walls family, and the place from which they must all eventually escape.

93 Little Hobart Street is most symbolic of the depression that accompanies the family's move to Welch. From the outset, the house is shoddy and in desperate need of repair. However, Jeannette is the only one who tries to fix it; all other members have given up fixing or improving the house. Everyone appears hopeless that their conditions will improve and powerless to change them.

Finally, Jeannette begins to recognize that her father continually the family down. Once the only child who believed in him, she loses hope in Rex as his drunkenness worsens. When Jeannette asks Rose Mary to leave Rex so that the family can qualify for welfare, Rose Mary is shocked and she admonishes Jeannette for losing hope in her father.

The dream of the Glass Castle is also destroyed during this time. Brian and Lori begin digging a foundation for the home Rex had designed for his family, but the foundation instead becomes a ditch for garbage that the family cannot afford to have picked up. The idea and dream of the Glass Castle as a physical structure is also destroyed when this happens. Jeannette realizes that it will never be built. Yet, the Glass Castle as a symbol and an abstract hope lives on.