Return+to+Sender+by+Julia+Alvarez

I grew up in Vermont. I didn't live on a farm, but there were several dairy farms on the outskirts of the city where I lived. When I was in third grade we were invited to a very sad goodbye party. A family was leaving the farm which their family had owned for several generations. The farm wasn't profitable anymore - they couldn't make enough money to support their family by selling milk from their cows. The memory of that sad evening has stayed with me all these years.

In __Return to Sender__, the Paquette family will loose their farm if they can't get more men to help run the farm. The Cruz family is from Mexico. In Mexico, they cannot find work which will support the family's basic needs, food, clothing, shelter. They came into the United States without passports or visas to stay and work here. The Paquette family is happy to have them work on their farm, but the Cruz family knows that they could be discovered, land in prison, and ultimately sent back to Mexico.